Climb Benbaun at 729m, the highest of the Twelve Bens

Walk a ridge traverse between two or more of the Bens

Look east across the Inagh valley to the Maumturks, the range's partner

Work out which peaks you think the 'twelve' actually are — nobody agrees

The Twelve Bens — Na Beanna Beola, the peaks of Beola — are sharp quartzite summits west of the Inagh valley, four of them inside Connemara National Park and the rest on open mountain beyond it, and the odd thing about them is that nobody agrees which twelve they are: there are nearly twenty peaks with Ben or Binn in the name. Benbaun is the highest at 729m. The rock is bare, the ground between the peaks is bog, and there are almost no paths, which is why a traverse here is a serious undertaking and a superb one.

Benbaun and the Twelve Bens: Connemara's Quartzite Peaks

Connemara and Killary

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

Go round Kylemore Abbey, built as Mitchell Henry's castle in 1868

Walk the Victorian walled garden laid out in 1870

Find out how Belgian Benedictine nuns came to Connemara in 1920

Climb Diamond Hill from the Connemara National Park visitor centre at Letterfrack

Mitchell Henry, a wealthy London doctor, and his wife Margaret fell for this valley on their honeymoon around 1850, and in 1868 he built Kylemore Castle here; Margaret died of a fever caught in Egypt in 1874, and the walled garden was laid out by the head gardener James Garnier in 1870. In 1920 Benedictine nuns who had fled Belgium during the First World War founded Kylemore Abbey in the castle. Part of the old estate is now Connemara National Park, opened in 1980, with its entrance on the Clifden side of Letterfrack and a loop walk up Diamond Hill for the view over the park.

Kylemore and Connemara National Park

Kayak on Killary Fjord, the 16km glacial inlet between Galway and Mayo

Walk to Aasleagh Falls on the Erriff River, where it tumbles into the head of the fjord near Leenaun

Walk the Green Road along Killary's southern shore, past the ruins of Foher — rough going on a bike

Look across the fjord to Mweelrea, Connacht's highest mountain, rising straight from the water

Killary is the best known of Ireland's fjords — a 16km glacial inlet along the Galway–Mayo border, over 40 metres deep in the middle, narrow and walled by mountains that go straight into the water. Mweelrea, the highest in Connacht, rises off the northern shore. At the head of it near Leenaun the Erriff River comes down in Aasleagh Falls. The Green Road along the southern shore is nine kilometres of famine-relief track between Leenaun and Rosroe, past the ruins of the lost hamlet of Foher, and from a kayak on the water the scale of the place finally makes sense.

Killary Fjord: The Long Inlet Under Mweelrea

Climb Mweelrea to 814m, the highest point in Connacht

Look down the length of Killary Harbour from the summit

Walk part of the horseshoe over Ben Bury or Ben Lugmore

Look into the cliff-lined corries cut into the south-eastern face

Mweelrea rises 814m straight above Killary Harbour and is the highest mountain in Connacht, at the heart of a horseshoe massif that takes in Ben Lugmore and Ben Bury. Its south-eastern side is cut into cliff-lined corries, and the geology of the Mweelrea Formation is entirely different from the Twelve Bens across the fjord. It is a long, pathless, serious day, and the view down the length of Killary, Ireland's best known fjord, is the payment.

Mweelrea: The Highest Mountain in Connacht

Walk out to the Marconi station site and the Alcock and Brown landing place in Derrygimlagh bog

Find the ruin of Clifden Castle, John D'Arcy's house

Cross the strand to Omey Island at low tide and find the medieval church dug out of the sand in 1981

Clifden was the idea of John D'Arcy, who first proposed a town on this coast in 1812 and built Clifden Castle, now a ruin, to the west. Four miles south, Marconi built his first high-power transatlantic wireless station, and on 17 October 1907 it opened the first fixed wireless service between Europe and North America; Jack Phillips, later the Titanic's chief radio operator, worked there. On 15 June 1919 Alcock and Brown ended the first non-stop transatlantic flight by landing their Vickers Vimy in Derrygimlagh bog beside it, mistaking the green bog for a meadow. West of town runs the Sky Road, and north at Claddaghduff you can drive or walk across the sand to Omey Island at low tide.

Clifden: Marconi, Alcock and Brown, and the Sky Road

Walk Roundstone's harbour, laid out by Alexander Nimmo in the 1820s

Climb Errisbeg above the village for the view over the bog and the bays

Walk the tombolo between Gurteen Bay and Dog's Bay and look at what the sand is made of

Find the Franciscan monastery built in 1835

Roundstone was laid out in the 1820s by the Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo, who was building roads and harbours all over the west of Ireland, and fishermen from Scotland settled in it; after Catholic Emancipation a Franciscan monastery went up in 1835. Behind the village rises Errisbeg, nearly 1,000 feet, with the bogs of Roundstone below. West of it, Gurteen Bay and Dog's Bay lie back to back on either side of a tombolo, and Robert Lloyd Praeger said their sand was made of the shells of foraminifera — an exaggeration, but it is made of fragments of shells and skeletons, not rock.

Roundstone: Nimmo's Harbour, Errisbeg and Dog's Bay

Drive the Doolough Valley road from Louisburgh, the way the starving walked in March 1849, between the Sheeffry Hills and Mweelrea with the lake below the road

Read the inscription on the Famine Memorial cross beside the road — the annual Famine Walk in spring retraces the nineteen kilometres to Delphi and back

Go on to the gates of Delphi Lodge, the hunting lodge where the officials were staying and where the people were turned back

Stop at the shore of Doolough and listen — no buildings the length of the valley, and nothing but wind and water

On 30 March 1849 two officials of the Westport Poor Law Union came to Louisburgh to inspect people receiving outdoor relief. The inspection did not take place, and the officials went on to Delphi Lodge, a hunting lodge nineteen kilometres south. The several hundred people who had gathered were told to present themselves at Delphi at seven the next morning if they wanted to keep their relief. They walked through the night in bad weather, and when they reached the lodge they were told they were not eligible and sent back. Seven bodies, women and children among them, were found on the roadside above Doo Lough; nine or ten more never reached home. Some accounts put the dead at around twenty, and local tradition puts it far higher.

The Doolough Tragedy: A Valley of the Dead

Climb Mount Leinster from the Borris side in Carlow

Reach the summit beside the transmitter mast and look out over four counties

Walk the ridge south towards Blackstairs Mountain

Drive or cycle up to the Nine Stones viewpoint on the shoulder of the mountain

Mount Leinster stands on the Carlow–Wexford border and is the highest of the Blackstairs Mountains and the fifth-highest in Leinster, after Lugnaquilla, Mullaghcleevaun, Tonelagee and Cloghernagh. The transmitter mast on top is visible for miles and is the thing everyone in the south-east navigates by. You can climb it from Borris on the Carlow side or Bunclody on the Wexford side, and the ridge running south towards Blackstairs Mountain is the better walk once you are up.

Mount Leinster: The Top of the Blackstairs

Drive the R668 from Clogheen over the Vee Gap towards Lismore

Stop at the hairpin viewpoint and look out over the Golden Vale to the Galtees

Walk down to Bay Lough, the corrie lake in the hollow below the road

Carry on down the far side towards Lismore, the way the old mail coach road went

The R668 climbs out of Clogheen and crosses the Knockmealdown Mountains between Sugarloaf Hill and Knockshanahullion through the Vee Gap — Bóthar na gCorr — on a hairpin so tight the road is named for it. The road over the gap is the old mail coach road from Lismore to Clogheen. From the top the Golden Vale lies out flat below you with the Galtees behind it, and Bay Lough sits in a hollow under Sugarloaf Hill just off the road.