Cycle the coast road from Galway city west to Spiddal, about 18km each way, along the northern shore of Galway Bay

Walk the Salthill Promenade and touch the wall at the end, the tradition among Galwegians, with the Blackrock diving tower beside it

Stop in Barna, the fishing village on the bay, and its woods above the shore

Visit the Spiddal Craft Village in An Spidéal, a village where Irish is still spoken, and its workshops

Eighteen kilometres each way along the northern shore of Galway Bay, from the city out into the Gaeltacht. It starts on the Salthill Promenade, where the tradition is to touch the wall at the far end before you turn — Galwegians do it without thinking — and the Blackrock diving tower stands beside it. Barna is a fishing village with woods above the shore. And Spiddal at the end is a village where Irish is the everyday language, with a craft village of working studios at the edge of it.

Galway Bay Coastal Cycle

Galway Bay

Dublin

Ten nights in a loop from Dublin to the west and back: Clonmacnoise on the Shannon, three nights in Connemara for Roundstone, the Sky Road and Killary, then Croagh Patrick and Athlone.

Connemara and the West from Dublin

Attend the Galway International Oyster Festival in the city on its last-weekend-of-September dates

Watch or enter the World Oyster Opening Championship, held at the festival since its early years

Taste oysters at the festival stalls and compare a native flat oyster to a Pacific rock oyster

Walk the Claddagh and Nimmo's Pier and look out over the bay the oysters come from — the native beds are out at Clarinbridge

The Galway International Oyster Festival began in 1954 when Great Southern Hotel manager Brian Collins and the owners of Paddy Burke's bar in Clarenbridge held the first oyster-opening contest for 34 people. The festival marquee stands at the Galway City Fishmarket by the Spanish Arch on the last weekend of September, and the World Oyster Opening Championship — the sport's original world title — is still decided there each year.

Galway Oysters: The Festival Since 1954

See a show under the Big Top at Fisheries Field, on the University of Galway campus beside the Salmon Weir Bridge

See at least three different types of performances across the festival programme (theatre, music, visual art)

Watch a free outdoor street performance in Galway city centre during the festival

Walk the two minutes from Fisheries Field to Galway Cathedral, then cross the Salmon Weir Bridge into the city for the free outdoor programme

Buy a ticket to at least one ticketed festival show in addition to the free outdoor programme

The Galway International Arts Festival was founded in 1978 by University College Galway's Arts Society and the Galway Arts Group, renamed from Galway Arts Festival in 2014. Its Big Top is pitched each July at Fisheries Field on the University of Galway campus, known as NUI Galway until 2022, beside the Salmon Weir Bridge, a two-minute walk up the riverbank from Galway Cathedral on the same side of the Corrib.

Galway International Arts Festival

At Ceardlann an Spidéil, find the weaving studio and watch a length of cloth being worked on the loom

Visit the pottery studio and find a piece being thrown or glazed that day

Buy one piece directly from the artisan who made it and ask what makes their technique specific to Connemara

From the craft village, look out across Galway Bay and identify the Aran Islands on the horizon

Ceardlann an Spidéil, at the entrance to Spiddal village on Galway Bay, is a working craft village where resident artisans make and sell what they produce on site — weaving, pottery, stained glass and Celtic jewellery among them — with the Aran Islands visible across the bay on a clear day.

Ceardlann an Spidéil: A Connemara Craft Village

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

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

Cycle the Carlingford–Omeath Greenway, approximately 8km along the shore of Carlingford Lough

Stop at a Greenway viewpoint and photograph the Mourne Mountains across the lough in County Down

In Carlingford, find Taaffe's Castle — an early 16th-century fortified merchant's townhouse on the old quay

Lunch in Omeath village, looking back down the Louth shore to Carlingford under Slieve Foy, with Warrenpoint across the water in County Down

Eight kilometres of greenway along the shore of Carlingford Lough, with the Mourne Mountains standing straight up out of the water on the far side in County Down — one of the best mountain views in Ireland from a flat bike path. Carlingford itself is a medieval town: Taaffe's Castle is a fortified merchant's townhouse of the early 16th century, built right on the old quay with a trading floor below and living rooms above, back when the sea came up to its door — there is no evidence the Taaffes it is named after ever built or owned it. Omeath at the far end looks back at Carlingford under Slieve Foy.

Carlingford to Omeath Coastal Cycle

Cycle the Tralee to Fenit Greenway, the old railway line along Tralee Bay, about 12km

Visit the Tralee Bay Wetlands Centre, the wetland reserve on the edge of Tralee, and look for birds on the estuary

Walk the causeway to Great Samphire Island at Fenit and look across to the lighthouse on Little Samphire Island

Visit the Church of St Brendan at Fenit, near the traditional birthplace of the navigator saint

Twelve kilometres of old railway line along the southern shore of Tralee Bay, flat the whole way and finishing at a working fishing port. On the way out of town the Tralee Bay Wetlands Centre looks over the estuary, which is full of birds on a falling tide. At Fenit a causeway runs out to Great Samphire Island and the harbour, with the lighthouse standing offshore on Little Samphire Island, and the Church of St Brendan stands near the spot traditionally held to be the birthplace of Brendan the Navigator, who is supposed to have sailed from here to America nine centuries before Columbus.