Swim from the Guillamene steps into Tramore Bay

Find the old men-only sign above the cove, a rule that lasted until the early 1980s

Swim at the Newtown Cove steps just along the same stretch of coast

Come back in winter and do it again when the water is at its coldest

The Newtown and Guillamene swimming coves sit off Cliff Road at the base of Newtown Head, cut into the rock with concrete steps, iron railings and diving boards bolted to the cliff. Until the early 1980s the Guillamene was men-only, and the old sign is still there. Irish cold-water swimming is not a wellness trend on this coast; it is an unbroken daily habit that runs straight through the winter, and this is one of the places it never stopped.

The Guillamene: Waterford's All-Year Swimming Cove

Waterford

Rosslare

Six nights in a loop from Rosslare: Waterford's Viking Triangle, two nights on the Copper Coast for sea stacks and the greenway, Ardmore's round tower and Lismore's gardens, then medieval Kilkenny.

Waterford and the Copper Coast from Rosslare

Go into Reginald's Tower, the oldest civic building in Ireland, and its Viking museum

Find Henry VIII's cap of maintenance in the Medieval Museum, the only piece of his clothing that survives

Go down into the 15th-century Mayor's Wine Vault

Walk the Viking Triangle between the tower, the Medieval Museum and the Bishop's Palace

Reginald's Tower stands at the eastern end of Waterford's quay, and it is the only urban monument in Ireland to keep a Norse name — Raghnall, from the Old Norse Røgnvaldr, probably after one of the Viking rulers of the town. The Anglo-Normans built it after taking Waterford, in place of an earlier Viking fortification; the present tower is probably of the 13th or 14th century, perhaps 1253–1280, and it is the oldest civic building in Ireland, now holding the Waterford Viking Museum. Beside it the Waterford Treasures museums fill the Viking Triangle. The Medieval Museum, built round the 13th-century Choristers' Hall and the 15th-century Mayor's Wine Vault, keeps the 14th-century Waterford Charter Roll and the only surviving piece of clothing worn by Henry VIII — the cap of maintenance he gave the Mayor of Waterford, with a sword, in 1536. The Bishop's Palace, the Irish Silver Museum and the Irish Museum of Time are next door.

Waterford's Viking Triangle: Reginald's Tower and Henry VIII's Cap

Start at the Copper Coast Geopark visitor centre in the old church at Knockmahon

Walk the cliff path to the engine house at Tankardstown

Find out what the copper mines left on these cliffs

Drive east to Newtown Head and see the Metal Man pointing out to sea

The Copper Coast Geopark runs for about 25 kilometres of the Waterford coast from Kilfarrasy to Stradbally, and was the first geopark designated in Ireland: rocks formed by volcanic activity some 460 million years ago, with dolmens, Iron Age forts and medieval churches on top, and the ruins of 19th-century copper mining on the cliffs. The geopark's visitor centre is in the old Monksland church at Knockmahon, and the engine house at Tankardstown stands on the cliffs. East along the coast, after the transport Sea Horse foundered in Tramore Bay in January 1816, Lloyd's paid for navigation pillars on the headlands, put up in 1823 — three on Newtown Head, one of them topped by the Metal Man pointing out to sea.

The Copper Coast: Engine Houses and the Metal Man

Walk Stradbally Cove, 8.5km west of Bunmahon on the Copper Coast UNESCO Global Geopark

Find the tilted beds exposed in the cliffs at Ballydowane Cove, between Bunmahon and Stradbally, and work out which way up the beds were laid down

Photograph Ballydowane's sea stacks, cut free from the cliff line by the Atlantic working along the softer rock

Take in Stradbally, Ballydowane and Boatstrand — each a short drive apart off the R675, with walks down to the sand at each

The Copper Coast Geopark is better known for its mines, but this stretch is about what the sea is doing to the rock rather than what men took out of it. The cliffs at Ballydowane expose tilted beds of red sandstone and conglomerate you can read straight off the face, and the sea has cut the softer material away into free-standing stacks on the beach. Stradbally Cove lies 8.5km west of Bunmahon, and the coastal path lets you beach-hop between Stradbally, Ballydowane and Boatstrand in a day.

Ballydowane and Stradbally: The Copper Coast's Sea Stacks

Walk the full length of the roofless nave and stand under the crossing tower

Get lost in the hedge maze, one of only two full-size ones in Ireland

Find out why Strongbow's uncle founded a Cistercian house on this estuary

Walk down to the Barrow estuary below the abbey

Richard de Clare — Strongbow — instructed his uncle Hervé de Montmorency to found a Cistercian house in Wexford, and Dunbrody is the result: a very large roofless abbey church on the Barrow estuary, with a nave you can walk the full length of and a crossing tower still standing. The visitor centre opposite is run by the present Marquess of Donegall and has one of only two full-size hedge mazes in Ireland, which is an unusual thing to find across the road from a medieval abbey.

Dunbrody Abbey: A Cistercian Nave and a Hedge Maze

Cycle the greenway west from Kilmacthomas towards the coast

Ride through the 400-metre Ballyvoyle Tunnel

Finish at Dungarvan harbour beside the castle

The Waterford Greenway opened in March 2017 on the old railway line to Dungarvan, and at 46 kilometres it is one of the longest greenways in Ireland, with 11 bridges, three viaducts and a 400-metre tunnel, running from Waterford city through Kilmeaden and Kilmacthomas to Dungarvan. The western half is the best of it: from Kilmacthomas down to the coast, over the Durrow Viaduct and through the Ballyvoyle Tunnel, along the Copper Coast and into Dungarvan.

The Waterford Greenway: Kilmacthomas to Dungarvan

Walk Tintern Abbey, founded around 1200 by William Marshal after a vow made when his ship was caught in a storm nearby — hence its name, Tintern de Voto

Tour Duncannon Fort, a star-shaped fortress built in 1587–88 by Elizabeth I to defend against the Spanish Armada

See Loftus Hall from the road, billed as Ireland's most haunted house, built over a medieval hall on the Hook Peninsula's tip

Drive the full Hook Peninsula loop past Hook Lighthouse, one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the world

William Marshal was caught in a storm crossing to Ireland and vowed that if he lived he would found an abbey wherever he landed. He lived, and around 1200 he founded Tintern on this peninsula — Tintern de Voto, Tintern of the Vow. Four centuries later Elizabeth I answered a different threat here, throwing up the star-shaped fort at Duncannon in 1587–88 against the Spanish Armada. Out at the tip stands Loftus Hall, built over a medieval hall and sold to visitors as the most haunted house in Ireland, and Hook Lighthouse, one of the oldest working lighthouses anywhere.

Tintern Abbey and Duncannon Fort: The Hook Peninsula

Climb the seven floors around the atrium shaped like a pint

Learn to pour your own pint properly, with the two-part pour and the settle

Drink the pint in the Gravity Bar with the city laid out below

Find the 9,000-year lease Arthur Guinness signed in 1759, at £45 a year

The Storehouse opened at St James's Gate on 2 December 2000 and has taken over twenty million people through it since. The building is the joke: seven floors wrapped around a glass atrium built in the shape of a pint of Guinness, so you are climbing up through the inside of the drink. The seventh floor is the Gravity Bar, with Dublin laid out on every side and the pint itself included in the price of most tickets. It is the most visited paid attraction in the country and it earns it.

The Guinness Storehouse: Seven Floors Inside a Pint

Walk into the old oakwood around Muckross and look at what is growing on the trees themselves

Find rhododendron invading under the canopy and see what it does to the ground layer

Walk the Torc or Muckross trails in rain, which is when an Atlantic oakwood is at its best

Look for the native red deer herd, present in Ireland since prehistory

Almost all of Ireland's native forest is gone, and what survives at Killarney is the largest remaining area of it — Atlantic oakwood, with the rainfall of the west Kerry mountains keeping the trunks and branches under a layer of mosses, liverworts and ferns that grows on the trees themselves. The threat now is not the axe but the rhododendron, which was introduced ornamentally, escaped, and shades out everything beneath it; clearing it is a continuous battle across the park.