Walk up the Great Sugar Loaf from the main car park on its south-western side

Scramble the last section of loose quartzite to the summit

Look north over Bray and Dublin Bay and west into the Wicklow Mountains

Find out why the cone shape has nothing to do with volcanoes

Everybody who drives the N11 past Kilmacanogue assumes the Great Sugar Loaf is an extinct volcano. It is not. At 501m it is a cone of quartzite — an erosion-resistant metamorphosed deep-sea sediment that simply outlasted everything around it, leaving the shape behind. It is a short walk in, a scramble up the final cone, and the whole of Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Mountains laid out from the top.

The Great Sugar Loaf: The Cone That Is Not a Volcano

Powerscourt and Glendalough

Dublin

Five nights in a loop from Dublin, south into Wicklow and north to the Boyne: Powerscourt and the Sugar Loaf, the Spinc above Glendalough, Trim Castle and Tara, then Newgrange and Knowth.

Wicklow and the Boyne Valley from Dublin

Walk the Italian Garden down to Triton Lake

Find the Japanese gardens and the Pepperpot Tower

Find the pet cemetery the Wingfields kept

Walk to the foot of Powerscourt Waterfall, 121 metres high

Powerscourt, above Enniskerry, began as a 13th-century castle and was remodelled by Richard Cassels between 1731 and 1741; a fire in 1974 left it a shell until it was restored in 1996. The gardens are the reason to come. Mervyn Wingfield inherited the estate in 1844 at the age of eight, and when he came of age he made the gardens you see: the Italian Garden, Triton Lake, the Japanese gardens, the walled gardens, a pet cemetery, and the Pepperpot Tower, said to be modelled on Lady Wingfield's three-inch pepper pot. A few kilometres south, Powerscourt Waterfall drops 121 metres from the Dargle's hanging valley — the second highest waterfall in Ireland.

Powerscourt: The Gardens and the Waterfall

Walk the full cliff path from Bray seafront round Bray Head to Greystones

Look down on the railway line clinging to the cliff below the path

Climb up to the cross on top of Bray Head for the view back over Dublin Bay

Take the DART back from Greystones rather than walking it twice

The railway round Bray Head was driven along the cliff face in the 19th century and the sea has been working at it ever since. The walking path runs beside and above the line, about seven kilometres round the head from the end of Bray seafront to the harbour at Greystones, with the Irish Sea directly below and no road anywhere near it. The proper way to do it is to walk one way and take the DART back.

Bray to Greystones: The Cliff Walk Round Bray Head

Hike the Wicklow Way from the J.B. Malone memorial stone on White Hill up the boarded sleeper path to Djouce's summit (725m)

From the Djouce summit cairn, identify the Great Sugar Loaf to the east and Lugnaquilla to the south

Continue on the Way through the Dargle valley, past the turn-off for Powerscourt Waterfall — at 121m, one of Ireland's tallest

Cover at least 50km of the trail across consecutive days, following the trail's yellow-figure waymarkers

The Wicklow Way was the Republic's first waymarked trail — its opening section was cut in 1980 and the full route finished later and running 131km from Marlay Park in south Dublin to Clonegal in County Carlow. This ultra-distance challenge covers the trail's high central section through the Wicklow Mountains, including the path over Djouce (725m) laid with old railway sleepers.

The Wicklow Way End to End: 131km

View Lough Tay, the 'Guinness Lake', from the R759 viewpoint — the shore below is private land, so this is the view

Drive the Military Road over the Sally Gap, one of the highest and most exposed mountain passes in Ireland

Walk to Glenmacnass Waterfall, an 80-metre three-drop cascade beside the R115

Photograph Glenmacnass from the upper viewpoint car park, where the Military Road crosses right beside the falls

Lough Tay is called the Guinness Lake because it is dark peat water with a bright white sand shore at one end, and after the Guinness family, who owned the Luggala estate around it from 1937 until it was sold in 2019 — you see it from the R759 viewpoint, not from the shore. The R759 runs above it to the Sally Gap, where it meets the Military Road, one of the highest and most exposed roads in Ireland, with nothing on either side but blanket bog. Turn south on the R115 and the Glenmacnass Waterfall drops 80 metres in three stages right beside the road, with a car park at the top of the falls.

Lough Tay and Glenmacnass: Wicklow's High Road

Cycle Sally Gap, one of two road passes crossing the Wicklow Mountains, on the R759 Military Road

Climb Wicklow Gap (475m) on the R756, a category 3 climb in Tour de France terms, linking Dunlavin and Glendalough

Finish at Glencree, an 1806 military barracks turned reformatory and now the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation

Log the full 120km route and roughly 2,400m of climbing across all three passes

Only two road passes cross the Wicklow Mountains and this ride takes both of them in a day, plus Glencree — about 120km and 2,400m of climbing. Sally Gap goes over on the R759 Military Road with nothing but blanket bog either side. Wicklow Gap tops out at 475m on the R756 between Dunlavin and Glendalough, a category 3 climb in Tour de France terms. And the day finishes at Glencree, where an 1806 military barracks became a reformatory and is now the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation.

Sally Gap, Wicklow Gap and Glencree in One Day

Find Cooldrinagh on Kerrymount Avenue, Foxrock — the house Beckett's family built in 1903, where he was born in the main bedroom in 1906

Tour Trinity College Dublin, where Beckett studied French and Italian before becoming a lecturer there himself

Cross the Samuel Beckett Bridge, Santiago Calatrava's harp-shaped structure over the Liffey, opened in 2009

Note that Beckett's plays are still regularly staged around Dublin — check the Gate and Abbey Theatre listings for what's on

Samuel Beckett was born in 1906 in the main bedroom of Cooldrinagh, the house his family built on Kerrymount Avenue in Foxrock three years earlier, and it is still a private house on a suburban road. He read French and Italian at Trinity and came back to lecture there before leaving for Paris and writing the work that took theatre apart. The bridge named after him is Santiago Calatrava's, opened in 2009 and shaped like a harp laid on its side across the Liffey.

Beckett's Dublin: Cooldrinagh, Trinity and the Bridge

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

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.