Drive the hairpins of the Glengesh Pass south out of Ardara

Stop at the top of the pass and look back down the glen

Find a working handweaver in Ardara and watch Donegal tweed being made

Walk Maghera Strand and look into the sea caves under Slievetooey at low tide

Stop at the Assaranca waterfall on the road out to Maghera

Ardara is the weaving town of south-west Donegal, where Donegal tweed is still made by hand, and the road south out of it climbs the Glengesh Pass in a set of hairpins onto empty moorland before dropping away towards Glencolmcille. It is one of the great short drives in Ireland and it takes about ten minutes, which is the joke of it. West of the town, below Slievetooey, Maghera Strand hides more than twenty sea caves that you can only reach when the tide is out, and on the road out to it is the Assaranca waterfall.

Ardara and the Glengesh Pass

Walk in from the main entrance at the Mullyvea gate, opposite Kiltooris Lough

Scan the lough and the machair for Greenland white-fronted geese and whooper swans in winter

Find choughs feeding on the short grass of the machair

Look for marsh fritillaries and the reserve's orchids, including the rare Irish orchid, in the dune grassland and slacks

Walk out to the coastal heath on the headland beyond the dunes

Sheskinmore Nature Reserve lies between Kiltooris and Ballinreavy Strand, north-west of Ardara: a fixed dune system of machair grassland and dune slacks round Sheskinmore Lough, with marsh, fen and reedbed around the lough and coastal heath out on the headland beyond the dunes. In winter it takes Greenland white-fronted geese, whooper swans, lapwing and golden plover, and chough are here all year. Marsh fritillary and dingy skipper both breed on the reserve, and the orchids include marsh helleborine, bee orchid, frog orchid and the rare Irish orchid. Cattle graze it through the winter.

Sheskinmore: Geese, Choughs and Orchids Behind the Dunes

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.

Killybegs: Deep-Sea Angling From Ireland's Biggest Port

Go through the Folk Village cottages, one for each of three centuries

Walk the Turas, or as many of its fifteen stations as you can

Find the holy well at Beefan on the Turas route

Gleann Cholm Cille, on the Atlantic coast of south-west Donegal, is named after St Colm Cille — Columba — one of Ireland's three patron saints, and it is in the Gaeltacht. On 9 June, his feast day, the local people walk the Turas: fifteen stations of cross-slabs, stone crosses, a holy well, a church site and megalithic tombs, beginning at a court cairn built about 3000 BC, each station circled three times sunwise with prayers. The holy well is in the townland of Beefan. Father James McDyer came to the glen in December 1951, when seventy years of emigration had taken about 60 per cent of the parish's people; he set up local industries to stop the decline, and in 1967 opened the Folk Village: thatched cottages furnished as they would have been in the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s, with a schoolhouse, a shebeen and a fisherman's cottage.

Glencolmcille: The Folk Village and Colm Cille's Turas

Drive the narrow road up from Teelin to Bunglass for the view of the cliffs

Walk the Pilgrim Path up from Teelin to the ruins of Aodh Mac Bricne's church and well

Find the remains of the beehive huts on the plateau

Look along the ridge to One Man's Pass, and cross it only if you are an experienced hill walker

At 601 metres, Slieve League has the second-highest sea cliffs in Ireland, after Croaghaun on Achill, and some of the highest in Europe. The classic view is from Bunglass, at the end of a narrow road up from the fishing village of Teelin. On the landward side the Pilgrim Path climbs a U-shaped valley above Teelin to the ruins of the church and well of Aodh Mac Bricne, a 6th-century bishop who is said to have spent his last years as a hermit on the mountain, with the remains of beehive huts around them. Beyond, the ridge narrows to One Man's Pass.

Slieve League: The Cliffs from Bunglass and the Pilgrim Path

Take part in an Irish-language workshop on Arranmore, the largest inhabited island in Donegal and a stronghold of Ulster Irish

Visit Arranmore Lighthouse at the island's north-west tip, first established in 1798

Go sea angling from the island's harbour at Leabgarrow

Take the ferry from Burtonport, and walk or cycle the island road round the cliffs on the western side

Arranmore is the largest inhabited island in Donegal and one of the strongholds of Ulster Irish — a dialect distinct enough from the Irish of Connacht and Munster that learners notice it immediately. The island runs Irish-language workshops, which is the honest way to spend a few days here rather than just looking at it. The lighthouse at the north-west tip was first established in 1798, and the ferry runs from Burtonport on the mainland.

Arranmore: Donegal's Gaeltacht Island

Join a beach yoga or SUP-yoga session with Bundoran Surf Co on Tullan Strand

Walk the 3km Rougey loop from Bundoran town to the Fairy Bridges sea stacks

At the Wishing Chair beside the Fairy Bridges, sit, tap the stone twice, and make a silent wish — tradition says you must keep it secret

From the Fairy Bridges viewpoint, pick out Slieve League's cliffs across Donegal Bay to the north and Mullaghmore Head to the south

Tullan Strand, a 2km beach on Bundoran's north side, is where Bundoran Surf Co run their surf and SUP lessons. The walk there follows the Rougey loop past the Fairy Bridges sea stacks and the Wishing Chair, a natural stone seat with its own centuries-old ritual.

Tullan Strand: Beach Yoga and the Fairy Bridges

Find the Cross of the Scriptures and read the carved panels on it

Walk between the nine ruined churches and the two round towers

Look at the collection of over 700 early Christian graveslabs

Stand at the river and work out why the Esker Riada made this the crossroads of the country

Saint Ciarán, a Roscommon man from Rathcroghan, founded Clonmacnoise on the Shannon in 544 — and he chose the spot for a reason. This is where the Slighe Mhór, the great east–west land route, met the river after crossing the central bogs along the Esker Riada. Whoever held it controlled the crossroads of Ireland, which is why kings were buried here and why it was raided again and again. Nine ruined churches, two round towers, a castle and one of the greatest collections of carved crosses and cross-slabs in the country still stand on the riverbank.

Clonmacnoise: Where the Road Met the River

Go down to Foilhommerum Bay, where the successful 1866 cable was landed

Find the cable station site at Knightstown and the story of the 1857, 1858 and 1865 failures

Work out what it meant that a message could suddenly cross the Atlantic in minutes

Visit the slate quarry at Dohilla that roofed the Houses of Parliament

In 1866 a cable was run from Foilhommerum Bay on Valentia to Heart's Content in Newfoundland, and this time it held. It took four attempts to get there: the 1857 try from Ballycarbery Strand failed, the cable landed at Knightstown in 1858 carried messages for about three weeks before it died, and the 1865 cable from Foilhommerum snapped in mid-ocean. Valentia went from a slate-quarrying island at the edge of Europe to one end of the first nervous system the world ever had.