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

The Burren and the Cliffs

Two weeks down the Atlantic edge: seven campsites, each with the challenges around it, from Croagh Patrick to the 618 steps of Skellig Michael.

The Wild Atlantic Way: Westport to the Skelligs

Attend a trad session at Gus O'Connor's, Doolin's oldest pub, trading since 1832 and a music session fixture since Gus O'Connor's own tenure from 1956

Attend a session at McDermott's, in the same family since 1867, or McGann's, bought by the McGann brothers in 1975

During a session, identify by ear the fiddle, bodhrán, tin whistle, and uilleann pipes as musicians take turns leading a tune

Follow session etiquette for a full night — applaud between tunes rather than during them, and stay quiet through a slow air or solo song

Listen from just outside the circle at a third venue — the seats inside it belong to the players

Doolin's three pubs — Gus O'Connor's (trading since 1832), McGann's (bought from the Laffertys in 1975 by the brothers Tony and Tommy McGann), and McDermott's (in the same family since 1867) — host live trad sessions most nights of the year. Doolin has been a magnet for traditional musicians since long before it became a tourist destination.

Doolin's Three Pubs: O'Connor's, McGann's and McDermott's

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

Walk the fenced cliff-top path north from the visitor centre to O'Brien's Tower

Climb O'Brien's Tower, built in 1835 as a viewing point for visitors

Look for the Aran Islands out in Galway Bay on a clear day

Read the geology and seabird displays in the visitor centre, built into the hillside

Take a boat out from Doolin and see the cliffs from the water instead

The Cliffs of Moher run about 14 kilometres down the Clare coast, 120 metres high at Hag's Head in the south and reaching 214 metres just north of O'Brien's Tower, the round stone tower Sir Cornelius O'Brien put up in 1835 so that visitors would have somewhere to look from. Over a million people a year come, nearly all of them to the visitor centre — built into the hillside so as not to break the cliff-top line — and the fenced paths either side of it. The long coastal trail that used to run the whole way from Hag's Head to Doolin is not an option at present: the six kilometres from Liscannor up to Hag's Head are closed altogether on safety grounds, and from the Doolin end you can walk only as far as Surfers Path and turn back. On a clear day the Aran Islands sit out in Galway Bay in front of you.

The Cliffs of Moher: The Cliff Top and O'Brien's Tower

Walk the covered walkway beside the well and look at what pilgrims have left — photographs of the sick, children's toys, medical bracelets, rosaries, written prayers, decades deep

Walk the pattern at the well itself — three times sunwise with prayers, the circuit that gives the word its name, from the patron saint's day

Find the statue of St Brigid at the entrance, and read how the goddess and the saint merged here — the hill above was a Lughnasadh harvest site before the Christian pattern took over

Drive the 2km to the Cliffs of Moher and walk north from the visitor centre to O'Brien's Tower, built in 1835 as a viewing platform for tourists

The holy well of St. Brigid at Liscannor in County Clare is one of the most heavily used pilgrimage sites in the west of Ireland, on ground linked to the pre-Christian Lughnasadh gatherings and a documented place of pilgrimage for centuries. The well sits in a stone-walled enclosure with a covered walkway along which thousands of votive offerings — photographs, rosary beads, statues, written prayers — have accumulated over generations. The site is one kilometre from the Cliffs of Moher.

St. Brigid's Well at Liscannor

Walk the full length of Lahinch beach and promenade

Take a surf lesson on the beach break in front of the promenade

Walk the dunes around the old links course

Come back in a winter storm and watch the swell hit the promenade from a safe distance

Lahinch is the seaside town of north Clare — a crescent of beach facing straight into Liscannor Bay, a promenade behind it, and the dunes carrying one of the oldest links golf courses in the country. It is one of the foremost surfing beaches in Ireland and a forgiving one to learn on and the water is full of people falling off boards all summer. In winter the same bay throws swell against the prom hard enough to close the road.

Lahinch: The Beach, the Promenade and the Old Links

Photograph the Plassy on the north shore — wrecked in 1960 and thrown up onto bare rock by later storms

Climb to O'Brien's Castle, a 14th-century tower house built inside a prehistoric stone fort

Walk the single road to the lighthouse at the south point and watch the Atlantic from the end of the road

Cycle the full island loop — it takes less than an hour and feels like cycling through another century

Inis Oírr is the smallest of the three Aran Islands and the one most people skip. The Plassy was wrecked on the shore here on 8 March 1960, every one of her crew taken off alive by breeches buoy, and Atlantic storms have since thrown the hull up above the high tide mark, which is why she sits on bare rock. O'Brien's Castle is a 14th-century tower house built inside a prehistoric stone fort, using the older wall as its outer defence. A single road runs south to the lighthouse and stops at the Atlantic. The whole island loop takes under an hour on a bike, and Irish is still the working language on it.

Inis Oírr: The Forgotten Island

Take a seaweed bath at Voya in Strandhill, reviving a tradition of Sligo bathhouses that goes back to 1912

Walk Strandhill Beach right outside, one of Ireland's best-known surf beaches beneath Knocknarea

Look up at Knocknarea's summit cairn from the beach — the unexcavated cairn linked to Queen Maeve

Find out how Voya founder Neil Walton brought the seaweed-bathing tradition back to his home town in 2000

Sligo had a string of seaweed bathhouses along this coast from 1912, and by the end of the century they had all but gone. Neil Walton brought the tradition back to his own town in 2000, and Voya now runs hot seawater baths with fresh-cut Atlantic seaweed steeped in them, which is exactly what the Victorian bathhouses did. It sits directly behind Strandhill beach, one of the best-known surf breaks in the country, with the unexcavated cairn on top of Knocknarea — said to be Queen Maeve's grave — looking down on the whole thing.

Voya Seaweed Baths: Strandhill's Century-Old Tradition

Book a deep-sea angling charter out of Killybegs harbour, Ireland's largest fishing port, for pollack, mackerel, or cod on the offshore grounds

Fish from the harbour wall or pier rocks for mackerel on light tackle, the standard shore-angling catch in Donegal Bay

Practice catch-and-release on anything undersized or out of season, checking Inland Fisheries Ireland's limits before you fish

If your visit coincides with the annual Killybegs Hooked Seafood Festival, take part in its sea angling event alongside local anglers

Killybegs is Ireland's largest fishing port, home to charter operators running deep-sea angling trips for pollack, mackerel, and cod on the offshore grounds. The harbour also hosts the annual Killybegs Hooked Seafood Festival, which includes a sea angling event alongside its seafood competitions.