Stand under the capstone and work out how 40 tonnes was lifted into place

Throw three stones onto the capstone and see whether they stay

Find the wedge tomb standing in the same field

Look across to the Cooley Mountains, the setting of the Táin Bó Cúailnge

Proleek is a portal tomb standing in the Cooley countryside — two portal stones, a backstone, and a capstone that weighs about 40 tonnes balanced on top of them. How it was raised is the question nobody has answered. Local tradition says that if you can land three stones on top of the capstone and they stay there, you get a wish, or you will be married within the year. The top of it is covered in the evidence of people trying.

The Proleek Dolmen: Land Three Stones and Make a Wish

Carlingford

Belfast

Four nights in a loop from Belfast: Mount Stewart, Nendrum and Castle Ward around Strangford Lough, a climb from Newcastle beach into the Mournes, then Carlingford's greenway and the Proleek Dolmen.

The Mournes and Strangford Lough from Belfast

Climb Castletown Mount, the Norman motte traditionally held to be Cúchulainn's Dún Dealgan

Go through the County Museum in the restored Dundalk Distillery buildings

Find An Táin Arts Centre and the epic it takes its name from

Look north into the Cooley Mountains where the Táin is set

Dún Dealgan — Dundalk — is named for the fort of Dealga, and tradition puts Cúchulainn's home at Castletown Mount just outside the town — what stands there is a Norman motte-and-bailey of about 1185, with the ruin of Byrne's Folly on top, though a ringfort is said to have been there before it, which is why the whole Cooley landscape around it is the setting for the Táin Bó Cúailnge. The town sits on the Castletown River halfway between Dublin and Belfast, seven kilometres from the border. The County Museum occupies restored buildings of the old Dundalk Distillery, and An Táin Arts Centre in the town hall is named for the epic.

Dundalk: Cúchulainn's Fort and the County Museum

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

Climb Slieve Foy from Carlingford village to the summit at 589m

Look across Carlingford Lough to the Mourne Mountains in Down

Walk through the Windy Gap that separates Slieve Foy from the rest of the Cooleys

Pick out the landscape of the Táin Bó Cúailnge from the ridge

Slieve Foy rises 589 metres straight out of Carlingford village — the highest of the Cooley Mountains and the highest ground in Louth, so close to the water that people call it Carlingford Mountain. It is one of two ridges making up the Cooleys, cut off from the rest of the range by the Windy Gap. From the top you have Carlingford Lough below you, the Mournes across it in Down, and the whole landscape of the Táin Bó Cúailnge spread out underneath.

Slieve Foy: The Cooley Ridge Over Carlingford

Walk a section of the 40km Táin Way from Carlingford, following the waymarked loop into the Cooley Mountains

At Carlingford harbour, find King John's Castle — begun in the late 12th century by Hugh de Lacy and named for King John, who came here in 1210

Climb Slieve Foy (589m) and look down over Carlingford Lough to the Mourne Mountains in County Down

In Carlingford's medieval core, find Taaffe's Castle, an early 16th-century fortified merchant's townhouse on the old quay — trading floor below, living rooms above, and no evidence the Taaffes ever owned it

The Cooley Peninsula in County Louth is Táin Bó Cúailnge country — the Ulster Cycle's Cattle Raid of Cooley. Carlingford, a Norman port town that grew up around the castle Hugh de Lacy began in the late 12th century, sits at the foot of Slieve Foy, the peninsula's highest point at 589m, with the 40km waymarked Táin Way circling the mountains above.

Carlingford and the Táin Way

Climb Slieve Gullion to the summit at 573m, the highest point in Armagh

Go inside the summit passage grave, the highest surviving one in Ireland

Find the small lake on the summit beside the cairns

Trace the circle of the Ring of Gullion ring dyke from the top

Slieve Gullion is a steep, flat-topped mountain of 573m, the highest point in Armagh, and it sits at the centre of a ring dyke — the Ring of Gullion, a circle of low hills formed by a collapsed volcanic structure and now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. On the summit are a small lake and two ancient burial cairns, one of which is the highest surviving passage grave in Ireland. You can walk into it. The mountain is bound up with Cúchulainn in the Ulster Cycle, and the whole ring is visible from the top.

Slieve Gullion: The Highest Surviving Passage Grave in Ireland

Go through the Patrick Kavanagh Centre in the old church at Inniskeen

Walk the townland roads and drills that The Great Hunger describes

Read The Great Hunger or a passage of Tarry Flynn standing in the fields it came out of

Patrick Kavanagh was born in Inniskeen in 1904, the fourth of ten children, and kept goal for the parish football team before he got out. He wrote The Great Hunger about the life he left — a poem about a small farmer's sexual and spiritual starvation on land that gave nothing back — and it remains the least sentimental thing written about rural Ireland. Tarry Flynn came out of the same townlands. He is buried here, and the drills and hedges of the poems are still the ones you are looking at.

Inniskeen: Patrick Kavanagh's Stony Grey Soil

Cross the field and the stream to reach the priory — there is no formal entrance

Walk the four-acre site and pace out how big the precinct actually was

Find out which of the de Burghs were buried here — the graves are recorded but no tomb can now be pointed to

Look at the cloister arcade and the gatehouse still standing

Athassel covers four acres on the bank of the Suir and is the largest medieval priory in Ireland, founded in the late 12th century by the Augustinians under William de Burgh, who started the Burke dynasty. His descendants are in the ground here: Walter de Burgh, 1st Earl of Ulster, and Richard Óg de Burgh, the 2nd Earl. There is no car park, no ticket desk and usually nobody else — you cross a field and a stream to get in, and the scale of what is standing is startling once you are inside the walls.

Athassel Priory: The Largest Medieval Priory in Ireland

Walk the formal garden compartments and find the plants that should not survive this far north

Tour the house and find Castlereagh's rooms

Walk down to the shore of Strangford Lough through the estate

Find the Temple of the Winds on the high ground above the lough — it opens on summer Sundays only

Mount Stewart stands on the east shore of Strangford Lough, the Irish seat of the Stewarts, Marquesses of Londonderry — among them the 2nd Marquess, better known as Viscount Castlereagh, who was Britain's Foreign Secretary at the Congress of Vienna. The gardens are the reason to come: the mild Strangford microclimate lets things grow here that have no business surviving in Ireland, and the planting is laid out in a series of formal compartments running down to the lough.