Walk out to St Finbarr's Oratory on its lake island, where Cork's patron saint founded a monastery in the 6th century

Follow the Stations of the Cross above the ancient prayer cells behind the oratory

Walk the forest trails around Gougane Barra Lake in the Shehy Mountains, at the source of the River Lee

Sit at the lake shore near the Pass of Keimaneigh, the only road route into the valley

Gougane Barra is a lake in a bowl of the Shehy Mountains with one road into it, over the Pass of Keimaneigh. Finbarr, Cork's patron saint, is said to have founded a monastery on the island in the lake in the 6th century, and the oratory that stands there now is reached by a causeway. Behind it are the older prayer cells with the Stations of the Cross set above them. The River Lee rises in this valley, and the forest trails run right round the water.

Gougane Barra: St Finbarr's Forest Hermitage

Take the boat out to Garnish Island and walk Harold Peto's gardens

Climb to the Martello tower on the island

Walk the old oak and birch woods of Glengarriff Forest

Find out why the house Peto designed for the island was never built

Ilnacullin, Garnish Island, in Glengarriff harbour, was bought from the War Office in 1910 by John Annan Bryce, a Belfast man, and Harold Peto designed its gardens; the mansion Peto drew for it was never built. Bryce's son Roland left the island to the Irish nation in 1953. George Bernard Shaw stayed, and there is a restored Martello tower from the Napoleonic Wars — straight-sided, like the others in Cork, rather than splayed at the base. Behind the village, Glengarriff Forest keeps some of the oldest and most extensive oak and birch woods left in Ireland.

Glengarriff and Garnish Island: A Garden on an Island

Visit the Toons Bridge Dairy farm shop outside Macroom and watch buffalo mozzarella being stretched and shaped if it's being made that day

Taste at least 3 of the more than 15 cheeses Toons Bridge Dairy makes on site

Find the herd of water buffalo grazing near the old creamery building

Eat a pizza made with their own buffalo mozzarella at the on-site pizzeria (weekend service)

Toons Bridge Dairy keeps a herd of water buffalo at Toons Bridge, an old creamery building outside Macroom, making more than 15 cheeses on site including fresh buffalo mozzarella. The farm shop and pizzeria sit between the dairy and the garden, selling the full range alongside imported goods from the on-site Real Olive Co.

Toonsbridge Dairy: Cork's Buffalo Cheese Farm

Walk into the old oakwood around Muckross and look at what is growing on the trees themselves

Find rhododendron invading under the canopy and see what it does to the ground layer

Walk the Torc or Muckross trails in rain, which is when an Atlantic oakwood is at its best

Look for the native red deer herd, present in Ireland since prehistory

Almost all of Ireland's native forest is gone, and what survives at Killarney is the largest remaining area of it — Atlantic oakwood, with the rainfall of the west Kerry mountains keeping the trunks and branches under a layer of mosses, liverworts and ferns that grows on the trees themselves. The threat now is not the axe but the rhododendron, which was introduced ornamentally, escaped, and shades out everything beneath it; clearing it is a continuous battle across the park.

The Killarney Oakwoods: Ireland's Most Extensive Native Forest

Swim a lap from Ross Castle pier out toward Ross Island and back — this is Killarney's established open-water swim entry point on Lough Leane

Cycle the N71 from Ross Castle towards Moll's Gap, a climbing stretch of the Ring of Kerry, then return the same way

Run or hike the stepped and boardwalked trail from Torc Waterfall car park to Torc Mountain's 535m summit

Time your change from swim kit to cycling gear at the Ross Castle car park, then from bike to running shoes at the Torc Waterfall car park

Finish back at Ross Castle by walking the lakeshore path into Killarney town

Ross Castle, a 15th-century tower house on the shore of Lough Leane, is Killarney's established open-water swimming and boating point, with boats departing here for Innisfallen Island. From the same car park, the N71 climbs toward Moll's Gap on the Ring of Kerry, and Torc Mountain rises 535m from the lake's southern shore, its summit reached by a stepped and boardwalked trail from the Torc Waterfall car park.

Ross Castle to Torc: A Killarney Multi-Sport Day

Complete the full 179km Ring of Kerry circuit starting and finishing in Killarney in daylight hours

Climb the Coomakista Pass out of Waterville — 3.5km averaging 6% with sections up to 10%, rising over 200m above the sea

Navigate Moll's Gap and Ladies View climbs successfully

Pass through Kenmare, Sneem, Waterville, Cahersiveen and Killorglin without support-vehicle backup

Record GPS proof of continuous ride completion

Finish back in Killarney having completed the full circuit in one day

Coach tours do the Ring of Kerry in a day, sitting down. This is the same 179km circuit from Killarney and back between dawn and dusk, under your own power and unsupported. The hard part is the Coomakista Pass out of Waterville — 3.5km averaging 6% with pitches to 10%, climbing over 200m straight off the sea — and then Moll's Gap and Ladies View waiting for you at the end when the legs are gone. Kenmare, Sneem, Waterville, Cahersiveen and Killorglin all have to be ridden through, not driven between.

The Ring of Kerry in a Day: 179km

Go round Bantry House, still lived in by the White family

Walk the gardens the second Earl of Bantry laid out

Cook a meal at your pitch with cheese bought from the maker

Durrus sits ten kilometres from Bantry at the head of Dunmanus Bay, where the Sheep's Head and Mizen peninsulas begin, and gives its name to Durrus cheese, made at Coomkeen in three styles — the classic, the milder Durrus Óg and an oak-smoked version. Up the road, Bantry House has been owned and lived in by the White family, later Earls of Bantry, since the middle of the 18th century; it has been open to the public since the 1940s, and the second Earl and his wife laid out the gardens.

Durrus and Bantry: Farmhouse Cheese and the Whites' House

Walk the Horn Head loop past quartzite cliffs rising about 180m above the Atlantic, near Dunfanaghy

Find the ruins of the Horn Head Signal Tower, built during the Napoleonic Wars to watch for a French invasion fleet

Look for peregrine falcons and choughs nesting on Horn Head's cliffs

Drive or cycle the narrow road around the headland

Horn Head is a quartzite headland north of Dunfanaghy where the cliffs rise about 180 metres straight out of the Atlantic, and there is a loop walk round the top of them. On the summit stand the ruins of a signal tower thrown up during the Napoleonic Wars to watch for a French fleet that never arrived — one of a chain of them right round the Irish coast. Peregrines and choughs nest on the faces below. The road around the headland is narrow and quiet, with the Atlantic on one side the whole way.

Horn Head: A Napoleonic Signal Tower on the Cliffs

Tour Teeling Distillery in the Liberties, the first new whiskey distillery to open in Dublin in over 125 years when it opened in 2015

Visit the Irish Whiskey Museum on Grafton Street for a guided tasting through Irish whiskey's history

Tour Roe & Co Distillery on James's Street, built inside the old Guinness power station

Compare a pot-still Teeling whiskey with a Roe & Co blend, made a few streets apart in the same historic distilling district

The Liberties once held the largest distillery in the world, and Dublin at its peak had dozens of them, and then Dublin distilling collapsed so completely that when Teeling opened in 2015 it was the first new distillery in the city in over 125 years. Roe & Co is built inside the old Guinness power station on James's Street, a few streets away. Between the two, the Irish Whiskey Museum on Grafton Street walks you through how an industry that size disappeared and how it came back. Taste a pot still against a blend, made within a few streets of each other, and you can tell them apart.