Descend into Aillwee Cave, found in 1944 by a farmer following his dog — the tour covers about 300 metres of passage carved by ice-age meltwater

Walk Caherconnell Stone Fort, an exceptionally well-preserved medieval ring fort near Leamaneh Castle

Hike the Mullaghmore Loop in Burren National Park, through the karst landscape's terraced hills

Find the pavement clints and grykes on the Mullaghmore Loop, the fissured limestone that gives the Burren its name

A farmer following his dog into a hole in the hillside in 1944 found Aillwee Cave, a kilometre of passage carved by ice-age meltwater running through the limestone. Above it on the same hill the Burren does the opposite trick: bare pavement cracked into clints and grykes — Boirinn, the name, simply means the rocky district. Caherconnell nearby is an exceptionally well-preserved medieval ringfort near Leamaneh Castle, its drystone wall about 42 metres across and still standing some 3 metres high, and the Mullaghmore Loop in the national park climbs through the terraced karst.

Aillwee and Caherconnell: The Burren Under and Over

Stand back from the rope at Poulnabrone and look at the thin capstone, tilted as it was built rather than by erosion

Find the fossils in the limestone pavement around the dolmen, from the tropical sea that laid this rock down about 350 million years ago

Read the excavation board: about 33 people were buried here, with stone tools, quartz and bone jewellery and pottery

Come back after dark: there is no lighting at the car park, and the dolmen stands against the stars

Poulnabrone — usually given as the hole of the sorrows, though the name more likely comes from bró, a quernstone — stands alone in the Burren: two portal stones and a backstone carrying a thin, angled capstone, on a low mound in a flat karst limestone landscape that was a warm shallow sea some 350 million years ago. Excavated in 1986 and again in 1988, the tomb held the remains of about 33 people, adults and children, along with stone tools, quartz and bone jewellery and pottery; the burials date from the Neolithic, with a much later Bronze Age burial in the portico.

Poulnabrone and the Burren: The Hole of the Sorrows

Join a Wild Kitchen foraging walk in the Burren, learning to identify wild garlic, seaweed and other edible plants with a local guide

Cook and taste what you've foraged, prepared fresh the same day

Between October and April, spot cattle grazing the high Burren pastures — 'winterage', the reversed farming calendar of this limestone landscape

Finish with a foraged meal cooked outdoors, incorporating whatever was found that day

The Burren grows plants that have no business sharing a hillside, and a forager is the quickest way to understand why. A Wild Kitchen walk teaches you to pick out wild garlic, seaweed and the other edible things among the limestone, and then you cook and eat what you gathered the same day. Between October and April, look for cattle on the high pastures — that is winterage, the Burren's reversed farming calendar, where stock go up the hill in the cold months instead of down, and it is the reason the flowers survive.

Wild Kitchen: Foraging the Burren

Visit the Twin Wells at Lisdoonvarna Spa Wells, two natural springs emerging side-by-side from the limestone — one iron-rich, one sulphur-rich

Go through the Victorian pump house in the spa park, where the Aille and Gowlaun rivers meet

Taste the sulphur water at the pump house, still drawn straight from the Burren bedrock

Walk Lisdoonvarna's Victorian streetscape

Come in September for the matchmaking festival, held every year since 1857

Lisdoonvarna is a spa town, and the reason it exists is underneath it: mineral springs rising out of the Burren limestone, the Twin Wells running iron and sulphur side by side, with the main sulphur well at the bottom of the hill and all of the waters carrying iodine. The spa opened officially in 1845, though people were taking the waters before that, and the wells were owned by the Guthrie family until they were sold to a Dr Westropp, who developed them and built the baths; the Victorian pump house still stands in the spa park where the Aille and Gowlaun rivers meet. The town has held its matchmaking festival each September for well over 160 years, a month long and drawing upwards of 40,000 people, which makes it one of the largest events of its kind in Europe.

Lisdoonvarna: The Spa Wells and the Matchmaking Festival

Watch cattle being walked up onto the limestone for the winter

Come for the Winterage Festival around the October bank holiday weekend

Look at a grazed hill beside an ungrazed one and see what the scrub does

Find Arctic-alpine and Mediterranean plants growing within a metre of each other

Look into the grikes for some of the 24 fern species that grow down in them

Everywhere else in Europe, cattle come down off the hills for winter. In the Burren they go up. The limestone holds enough warmth and drains well enough that the uplands are the better winter ground, and that grazing is exactly what stops scrub taking over and shading out the flowers — which is why 23 of Ireland's 28 orchid species grow here, and why Arctic-alpine and Mediterranean plants share the same hillside. When farming industrialised and cattle moved to silage and sheds, the flowers began to lose. Restoring winterage is now conservation policy, and Burrenbeo runs a Winterage Festival around the October bank holiday to mark the cattle going up.

The Burren Winterage: Cattle That Go Up the Hill in Winter

Descend into Doolin Cave to see the Great Stalactite, reported at 7.3 metres and the longest known free-hanging stalactite in Europe

Find out how two English cavers from the Craven Pothole Club found the cave in 1952

Walk the cave's above-ground eco-trail through Burren farmland

Walk the full eco-trail loop before or after the cave tour, included with your ticket

English cavers from the Craven Pothole Club dropped into a hole in the Burren in 1952 and found something nobody expected: a single stalactite hanging free from the roof, reported at 7.3 metres and the longest known free-hanging stalactite in Europe. It is still there, still growing, and the cave was opened so you can stand under it. Above ground the same ticket gets you an eco-trail through Burren farmland, which is worth doing before or after to see what kind of rock makes a thing like that possible.

Doolin Cave: The Great Stalactite

Launch from Kinvara, beneath the walls of 16th-century Dunguaire Castle at the water's edge

Kayak across Galway Bay toward Spiddal, a full-day open-water crossing

Land at Spiddal pier in the Connemara Gaeltacht, completing the bay crossing

Time the crossing around Galway Bay's tides, which can add several hours to the paddle at the wrong state of tide

A full-day open-water crossing of Galway Bay, launching in the shadow of Dunguaire Castle — a 16th-century tower house standing right at the water's edge at Kinvara — and landing at Spiddal pier on the Connemara side, in the Gaeltacht. The distance is not the difficulty. Galway Bay's tides run hard, and getting the timing wrong can add hours to the paddle or stop you finishing it at all, so this one is planned around the tide table before anything else.

Kinvara to Spiddal: Kayaking Across Galway Bay

Soak in a hot seaweed bath at Collins's Seaweed Baths on Ladies Strand, Ballybunion — family-run since 1932, using freshly cut serrated wrack

Walk the Bromore Cliff Top Walk on the working farm 3km outside town, past sea caves, arches, and stacks carved by Atlantic storms

Find the ruined tower house on the headland between Ballybunion's Ladies Strand and Men's Strand beaches

Walk both Blue Flag beaches — Ladies Strand and Men's Strand — either side of the castle headland

Collins's Seaweed Baths on Ballybunion's Ladies Strand have run in the same family since 1932, using freshly cut serrated wrack. A ruined 16th-century tower house sits on the headland between the town's two Blue Flag beaches, with the Bromore Cliff Top Walk 3km further along the coast.