Walk the demonstration gardens and polytunnels at The Organic Centre

Fish Lough Melvin and find out how a gillaroo differs from an ordinary brown trout

Find the early Christian cross slabs in the churchyard at Rossinver

The Organic Centre at Rossinver was set up in 1995 as a charity to teach organic growing, on a 19-acre site with demonstration gardens and polytunnels, and runs dozens of weekend courses a year, from growing to stone-wall building. The village sits on the southern shore of Lough Melvin, on the Leitrim–Fermanagh border, which is home to two rare kinds of trout, the gillaroo — the red fellow, which lives on snails — and the sonaghen, and to its own endemic char. The church site at Rossinver was founded by St Máedóc, who died around 632, and nearby MacClancy's castle on the lake sheltered survivors from the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Rossinver: The Organic Centre and Lough Melvin

Join a beach yoga or SUP-yoga session with Bundoran Surf Co on Tullan Strand

Walk the 3km Rougey loop from Bundoran town to the Fairy Bridges sea stacks

At the Wishing Chair beside the Fairy Bridges, sit, tap the stone twice, and make a silent wish — tradition says you must keep it secret

From the Fairy Bridges viewpoint, pick out Slieve League's cliffs across Donegal Bay to the north and Mullaghmore Head to the south

Tullan Strand, a 2km beach on Bundoran's north side, is where Bundoran Surf Co run their surf and SUP lessons. The walk there follows the Rougey loop past the Fairy Bridges sea stacks and the Wishing Chair, a natural stone seat with its own centuries-old ritual.

Tullan Strand: Beach Yoga and the Fairy Bridges

Book a guided foraging walk and meet at Buoys & Gulls Café on Bundoran's Main Street for the briefing

Hand-harvest at least three edible seaweed species along the shoreline — dulse, kelp, and carrageen moss — using the cut-not-pull technique that lets the holdfast regrow

Cook a meal using your foraged seaweed the same day

Photograph carrageen moss drying flat on rocks above the tideline, the traditional method used along this coast to prepare it for carrageen pudding

Guided seaweed foraging walks run along the Bundoran shoreline, when the tides and the operator's calendar allow, starting from Buoys & Gulls Café on Main Street. Ireland's Atlantic coast produces dulse, kelp, and carrageen moss — the last of these dried flat on coastal rocks for centuries to make traditional carrageen pudding.

Donegal Seaweed Foraging & Cooking

Walk on to the Devil's Chimney after heavy rain and watch the water blow back up over the cliff in a southerly

Read The Stolen Child at the falls Yeats named in it

Walk or drive the length of Glencar Lough under the Dartry Mountains

Yeats wrote The Stolen Child in 1886 and collected it in The Wanderings of Oisin three years later, and the fairies in it call the child away to where the wandering water gushes from the hills above Glen-Car. The waterfall is still there, dropping about fifteen metres into a wooded glen at the end of a short boardwalk from the car park, A kilometre west of it is a second fall, Sruth in Aghaidh an Aird — the Devil's Chimney — at 150 metres the highest in Ireland, and its name is the point: in a southerly wind the water blows backwards, up and over the cliff edge, instead of falling. Glencar Lough runs west along the valley, the Dartry Mountains to the north and Cope's Mountain to the south.

Glencar: The Waterfall in Yeats's Stolen Child

Find the Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island and walk in among the stones

Look at both faces of the two-sided Janus figure and the hollow cut in its head

Find the smaller Lustymore figure, moved here from the neighbouring island in 1939

Decide for yourself whether these are pre-Christian or early Christian — nobody else has settled it

In the old Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island stand two carved stone figures that nobody can confidently explain. The larger is two-sided — a face on the front and another on the back, arms crossed, hollow on top — and is usually called the Janus figure, though whether it is pre-Christian, early Christian or something in between is still argued. The smaller one was carried over from Lustymore Island in 1939. They sit in an overgrown graveyard on a low island in Lower Lough Erne, with no ticket, no guide and no explanation.

The Boa Island Figures: Two Faces in a Fermanagh Graveyard

Walk the Calf House Dolmen Trail from the interpretative centre

Find the Giant's Leap wedge tomb, one of the most intact in Ireland

Find the erratic boulders the ice left on the plateau

Look for the boulders carved with prehistoric rock art

Cavan Burren Park sits on a limestone plateau about 295 metres up under Cuilcagh Mountain, in the Cuilcagh Lakelands Geopark, and it is one of the finest prehistoric landscapes in Ireland. It holds wedge and portal tombs going back to the Neolithic — among them the Calf House Dolmen, the Tullygobbin wedge tomb and the Giant's Leap wedge tomb, one of the most intact wedge tombs on the island — with cist graves, relict field walls, hut sites, a promontory fort and boulders carved with prehistoric rock art. The ice left huge erratic boulders scattered across the plateau, and the Giant's Leap is the bed of a vanished river. Five trails run from the interpretative centre; entry is free and it is open all year.

Cavan Burren: Tombs and Erratics on the Limestone

Walk into the open oval court and stand in the ceremonial space

Find the burial chambers leading off the far end of the court

Work out what an open forecourt says about how these tombs were used

Look up at Benbulbin and the Dartry Mountains from the tomb

Creevykeel sits right beside the N15 at Cliffony and is one of the finest court tombs left in Ireland — a full oval forecourt open to the sky, with burial chambers leading off it, built around five and a half thousand years ago. The court is the point: these were tombs designed with an open ceremonial space at the entrance, so whatever was done here was done in front of people. It is free, unfenced and takes ten minutes off the road.

Creevykeel: One of Ireland's Finest Court Tombs

Hike the Wicklow Way from Glendalough over Borenacrow into Glenmalure, roughly 14 km through Wicklow Mountains National Park

From Baravore car park in Glenmalure, follow the route past Fraughan Rock Glen to summit Lugnaquilla (925m) — the highest point in Leinster

At Glendalough, find St Kevin's Kitchen — the corbelled-roof oratory dating from around 1100 — and the 30-metre Round Tower, built as a bell tower and a landmark, and used as a refuge when the monastery was attacked

Camp a night in the hills near Glenmalure, following the park's wilderness camping guidelines and Leave No Trace

Lugnaquilla is the highest peak in County Wicklow and in the whole province of Leinster at 925m, most commonly climbed from the Glenmalure valley along the Military Road built by the British Army between 1800 and 1809 to open up the mountains after the 1798 Rebellion. This multi-day trek links a stretch of the 131km Wicklow Way with the Lugnaquilla summit and the early monastic site at Glendalough.

Lugnaquilla and Glendalough: The Wicklow Way Trek

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.