Attend at least one full opera performance during the festival

Book tickets in advance — the festival sells out

Attend one of the free fringe events in Wexford town

Stay at a campsite in County Wexford during festival week

One of the world's leading opera festivals for discovering rare and neglected works, running across late October and early November in Wexford town. The venues are intimate, the productions are serious, and the town gives itself entirely to it for two weeks.

Wexford Festival Opera

Take the guided tour from the Mesolithic camp to the Viking harbour

Go inside the crannóg and work out why anyone would build a house in a lake

Find the excavation on the hill of Carrig, one of the first Norman forts in Ireland

The Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig, near Wexford, opened in 1987 and tells the story of settlement in Ireland from the Mesolithic to the Norman invasion of 1169, with sixteen reconstructed dwellings across 34 acres of parkland, estuary trails and wet woodland: a Mesolithic camp, a Neolithic farmstead, a portal dolmen, a stone circle, a ringfort, a monastic site, a crannóg and a Viking harbour, where the guided tour of about an hour and a half ends. On the hill of Carrig above the Slaney is a real excavation: the site of one of the first Norman fortifications in Ireland.

The Irish National Heritage Park: Nine Thousand Years at Ferrycarrig

Go up the observation tower at the visitor centre — open daily, free in — and come between October and April for the geese

Observe Greenland white-fronted geese — distinguish them from other goose species

Record how many species you can identify during your visit

The North Slob outside Wexford town holds one of the largest concentrations of Greenland white-fronted geese in the world — up to 10,000 birds winter here between October and April. The visitor centre, run jointly by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and BirdWatch Ireland, is on site, with an eight-metre observation tower and three hides out on the reserve.

Wexford Wildfowl Reserve

Walk the length of Curracloe Strand and Ballinesker Beach

Stand where the D-Day landing sequence of Saving Private Ryan was filmed in 1997

Walk the boardwalks through the dune system behind the beach

Swim off the strand and work out why it doubled for Normandy

Ballinesker Beach and Curracloe Strand stood in for Omaha Beach in the opening of Saving Private Ryan — filming began on 27 June 1997 and ran for two months, and the village had to be connected to three-phase electricity to make it possible. The same strand played the Irish beach in Brooklyn. Without the films it is simply a long dune-backed Wexford beach eight kilometres from the town, which is the better reason to go.

Curracloe: The Beach That Played Omaha

Watch the tern colonies on the lake islands through binoculars from the shore in summer

Learn to tell a roseate tern from a Sandwich tern

Walk the shingle barrier that separates the lagoon from the sea

Find out what a back-barrier seepage lagoon is, and why there are only two in Ireland

Lady's Island Lake in south Wexford is a back-barrier seepage lagoon — one of only two in Ireland — where a shingle bar keeps the sea out and lets brackish water sit behind it. That accident of geography has produced one of the most important tern breeding grounds in Europe: over 1,200 pairs of Sandwich terns, and around 150 pairs of the rare roseate tern, the second largest colony of them anywhere in Europe.

Lady's Island Lake: Europe's Second Roseate Tern Colony

Climb Vinegar Hill and find the old windmill tower that served as rebel headquarters

From the summit, locate the Slaney river crossings below and the roads the British forces used to encircle the camp on 21 June 1798

Visit the National 1798 Rebellion Centre in Enniscorthy town

Walk through Enniscorthy and find the county memorial to the rebellion

The Battle of Vinegar Hill on 21 June 1798 broke the rebel camp above Enniscorthy and turned the Wexford rising from set-piece battle into retreat. Climb the hill the rebels camped on, then visit the National 1798 Rebellion Centre in Enniscorthy below.

Vinegar Hill & the 1798 Rebellion

Take the boat from Kilmore Quay to Great Saltee (April to September, weather permitting)

Observe the gannet colony on the western cliffs

Find the carved stone throne of the self-declared Prince of the Saltees

Identify at least four seabird species during your visit

A privately owned bird sanctuary, in the Neale family since 1943, reached by boat from Kilmore Quay. Gannets, puffins, razorbills and guillemots nest here in their thousands. The islands are also home to the self-declared Prince of the Saltees — find his throne.

Saltee Islands Bird Sanctuary

Tour the Smithwick's Experience and learn the 300-year brewing history on the abbey site

Visit the Kilkenny Design Centre and browse Irish-made work

Find one craft piece made in Kilkenny and buy it directly from the maker if possible

Kilkenny has been Ireland's craft capital for decades. The Smithwick's Experience sits on the original St Francis Abbey brewery site. The Kilkenny Design Centre is in the former castle stables. Both are genuine, not tourist traps.

Kilkenny Craft & Smithwick's

Take the guided tour of the abbey — the cloister carvings require explanation to understand

Find and identify the carved figures in the arcade: knights, bishops, and saints

Find the double effigy tomb in the nave and photograph the carved detail on the figures

Walk the full site including the chapter house and refectory ruins

A 12th-century Cistercian abbey near Thomastown with one of the finest carved cloisters in Ireland — knights, bishops, and saints carved into the arcade columns. Guided tours reveal details you'd walk past without knowing.