Cycle the greenway west from Kilmacthomas towards the coast

Ride through the 400-metre Ballyvoyle Tunnel

Finish at Dungarvan harbour beside the castle

The Waterford Greenway opened in March 2017 on the old railway line to Dungarvan, and at 46 kilometres it is one of the longest greenways in Ireland, with 11 bridges, three viaducts and a 400-metre tunnel, running from Waterford city through Kilmeaden and Kilmacthomas to Dungarvan. The western half is the best of it: from Kilmacthomas down to the coast, over the Durrow Viaduct and through the Ballyvoyle Tunnel, along the Copper Coast and into Dungarvan.

The Waterford Greenway: Kilmacthomas to Dungarvan

The Copper Coast

Rosslare

Six nights in a loop from Rosslare: Waterford's Viking Triangle, two nights on the Copper Coast for sea stacks and the greenway, Ardmore's round tower and Lismore's gardens, then medieval Kilkenny.

Waterford and the Copper Coast from Rosslare

Dublin

A loop from the ferry: Viking Dublin, the Boyne tombs, medieval Kilkenny, the Rock of Cashel, the Copper Coast, the Hook and Glendalough.

Ireland's Ancient East: A Fortnight From Dublin Port

Walk Stradbally Cove, 8.5km west of Bunmahon on the Copper Coast UNESCO Global Geopark

Find the tilted beds exposed in the cliffs at Ballydowane Cove, between Bunmahon and Stradbally, and work out which way up the beds were laid down

Photograph Ballydowane's sea stacks, cut free from the cliff line by the Atlantic working along the softer rock

Take in Stradbally, Ballydowane and Boatstrand — each a short drive apart off the R675, with walks down to the sand at each

The Copper Coast Geopark is better known for its mines, but this stretch is about what the sea is doing to the rock rather than what men took out of it. The cliffs at Ballydowane expose tilted beds of red sandstone and conglomerate you can read straight off the face, and the sea has cut the softer material away into free-standing stacks on the beach. Stradbally Cove lies 8.5km west of Bunmahon, and the coastal path lets you beach-hop between Stradbally, Ballydowane and Boatstrand in a day.

Ballydowane and Stradbally: The Copper Coast's Sea Stacks

Start at the Copper Coast Geopark visitor centre in the old church at Knockmahon

Walk the cliff path to the engine house at Tankardstown

Find out what the copper mines left on these cliffs

Drive east to Newtown Head and see the Metal Man pointing out to sea

The Copper Coast Geopark runs for about 25 kilometres of the Waterford coast from Kilfarrasy to Stradbally, and was the first geopark designated in Ireland: rocks formed by volcanic activity some 460 million years ago, with dolmens, Iron Age forts and medieval churches on top, and the ruins of 19th-century copper mining on the cliffs. The geopark's visitor centre is in the old Monksland church at Knockmahon, and the engine house at Tankardstown stands on the cliffs. East along the coast, after the transport Sea Horse foundered in Tramore Bay in January 1816, Lloyd's paid for navigation pillars on the headlands, put up in 1823 — three on Newtown Head, one of them topped by the Metal Man pointing out to sea.

The Copper Coast: Engine Houses and the Metal Man

Walk to Mahon Falls, an 80-metre cascade where the River Mahon plunges over sandstone cliffs on the Comeraghs' southern slopes

Walk in to the Coumshingaun corrie lake from Kilclooney Wood — the full ridge loop above it is a serious scramble, so judge it on the day

Compare the two Comeragh valleys — Mahon Falls' open waterfall glen against Coumshingaun's enclosed, ice-carved amphitheatre

Park at Kilclooney Wood or Kilclooney Bridge for the Coumshingaun approach, and at the signed car park off the R676 for Mahon Falls

The Comeraghs are sandstone, and the ice worked them into two completely different shapes within a few miles of each other. At Mahon Falls the river comes over the southern cliffs in an 80-metre cascade down an open glen you can walk into from the road. At Coumshingaun the ice dug a corrie instead — a lake sitting in an amphitheatre of cliffs that rise to the plateau above, one of the best known corries in Ireland. Doing both in a day shows you what a glacier does depending on which way the hill faces.

Mahon Falls and Coumshingaun: The Comeragh Corries

Swim from the Guillamene steps into Tramore Bay

Find the old men-only sign above the cove, a rule that lasted until the early 1980s

Swim at the Newtown Cove steps just along the same stretch of coast

Come back in winter and do it again when the water is at its coldest

The Newtown and Guillamene swimming coves sit off Cliff Road at the base of Newtown Head, cut into the rock with concrete steps, iron railings and diving boards bolted to the cliff. Until the early 1980s the Guillamene was men-only, and the old sign is still there. Irish cold-water swimming is not a wellness trend on this coast; it is an unbroken daily habit that runs straight through the winter, and this is one of the places it never stopped.

The Guillamene: Waterford's All-Year Swimming Cove

Climb to the 30-metre round tower, one of the best preserved in Ireland

Read the carved arcade on the west wall of the cathedral

Find the 8th-century oratory said to be St Declan's burial place

Walk the Ardmore cliff loop round the head below the village

Tradition holds that Declan was working in this part of the Déisi in the early 5th century and Christianised the area before Patrick ever arrived — which would make Ardmore the oldest Christian settlement in Ireland. On the hill above the village stand a 12th-century round tower 30 metres high and in excellent condition, a cathedral of the 12th and 13th centuries with a remarkable arcaded west wall, and an 8th-century oratory beside it. The cliff walk runs out round the head below.

Ardmore: Where Christianity Arrived Before Patrick

Walk the walled garden, cultivated continuously since the early 1600s

Walk the upper and lower gardens and see the castle from below

Go into Lismore Castle Arts, the contemporary gallery in the west wing

Walk the Blackwater below the castle and look back up at the bluff

Lismore Castle stands on a bluff straight above the Blackwater and has belonged to the Earls of Desmond, then Richard Boyle the first Earl of Cork, and since 1753 to the Cavendishes — it is still the Irish home of the Duke of Devonshire. The 6th Duke had it largely rebuilt in Gothic style in the mid-19th century. The castle itself is not open, but the gardens are, and they include a walled garden that has been under continuous cultivation since the early 1600s.

Lismore: The Castle Above the Blackwater

Start at the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre and take the shuttle across the Boyne

Go into Newgrange and stand in the chamber the solstice sun reaches

Find the carved entrance stone at Newgrange

Walk round Knowth and its 17 satellite tombs, and look at the kerbstone art

The bend of the Boyne holds at least ninety monuments — passage tombs, burial mounds, standing stones and enclosures — and has been a World Heritage Site since 1993. The passage tombs were built from about 3300 BC; Newgrange, from around 3100 BC, is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, faced with white quartz and ringed by carved kerbstones, and at the winter solstice the rising sun shines through a roofbox and floods its chamber. Knowth, a little older, has two passages and 17 smaller tombs around it, and the largest assemblage of megalithic art in Europe. There is no direct access: visitors go by shuttle bus from the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre, on guided tours only.

Brú na Bóinne: Newgrange and Knowth

Climb Fanad Head Lighthouse on a guided tour

Find out what happened to HMS Saldanha on the night of 4 December 1811

Look out over the mouth of Lough Swilly, one of Ireland's three glacial fjords

Walk the beach at Ballymastocker Bay, where the Saldanha was wrecked

Stay a night in one of the restored lightkeepers' houses

On the evening of 4 December 1811 the frigate HMS Saldanha was last seen passing Fanad Head in a storm; next morning she was found wrecked in Ballymastocker Bay inside Lough Swilly, with no human survivors, and about 200 bodies came ashore. The story goes that the ship's parrot survived and was found the next year with a ring round its neck engraved with the captain's name. The wreck led to the lighthouse on Fanad Head, designed by George Halpin and first lit on 17 March 1817. It is one of the Great Lighthouses of Ireland: you can climb the tower on a guided tour and stay in the three restored keepers' houses. It looks out over the mouth of Lough Swilly, one of Ireland's three glacial fjords, and down the shore at Portsalon is Ballymastocker Bay, whose beach The Observer once named the second most beautiful in the world.