Drive the orchard country around Loughgall when the blossom is out in late spring

Buy Armagh Bramleys from a grower in the orchards they came out of

Find out what Protected Geographical Indication status actually restricts

Cook something with a Bramley and see why it is a cooking apple and not an eating one

Armagh is called the Orchard County and it has the legal paperwork to back it up: Armagh Bramleys carry Protected Geographical Indication status, so the name is restricted to apples grown here. The Bramley itself came from pips a girl called Mary Ann Brailsford planted in a Nottinghamshire garden in 1809 — it is the only British cooking apple produced all year round, and it was nicknamed the King of Covent Garden. In Armagh the orchards blossom in late April and May and are picked in autumn.

The Orchard County: Armagh Bramleys

Walk the Armagh Astropark, a scale model of the universe laid out in the observatory grounds

See where Thomas Romney Robinson invented the cup anemometer

Take a show at the Armagh Planetarium next door

Find out about the 224 years of unbroken weather records, kept here since 1794

Archbishop Richard Robinson founded the Armagh Observatory in 1789 and it has been working ever since. One of its directors, Thomas Romney Robinson, invented the cup anemometer here — the spinning cups still used to measure wind speed on weather stations everywhere. It has also kept the weather: in 2018 the World Meteorological Organisation gave it a Centennial Weather Station Award for 224 years of unbroken records going back to 1794. The observatory sits in landscaped grounds called the Astropark, laid out as a scale model of the universe, with the planetarium beside it.

Armagh Observatory: Astronomy Since 1789

Walk the full length of the Mall, the Georgian green the city is built around

Go into the Robinson Library, founded in 1771 when the archbishop opened his own collection to the public

Find the copy of Gulliver's Travels carrying Swift's own handwritten notes

Walk from the library to the observatory Robinson also founded, on the hill above

Archbishop Richard Robinson set out to make Armagh a city worthy of being the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, and much of what he paid for is still standing — the observatory, the public buildings, and the Mall, the long Georgian green the city is arranged around. In 1771 he founded a library by the simple method of opening his own collection to the public. It is still there, and on display in it is a copy of Gulliver's Travels carrying handwritten notes by Swift himself.

Armagh: The Georgian Mall and the Robinson Library

Visit both St Patrick's cathedrals and stand on each hill looking at the other

Walk the Georgian Mall and the streets of pale limestone around it

Find where tradition places Patrick's church of 445

See the Armagh Robinson Library, founded by the archbishop who also founded the observatory

Tradition says Patrick founded his main church in Armagh in 445, and it became the head church of Ireland. The consequence is still on the skyline: the city has two cathedrals, both dedicated to St Patrick, on two hills facing each other — one Church of Ireland, one Roman Catholic — and both archbishops hold the title Primate of All Ireland. Armagh is the ecclesiastical capital of the whole island and a Georgian city built in pale local limestone.

Armagh: Two Cathedrals, Both Called St Patrick's

Walk the great circular earthwork on the hilltop and pace out its size

Stand on the mound raised over the burnt timber temple

Find out at the visitor centre why a building would be made only to be burnt and buried

Go into Armagh city, the ecclesiastical capital that replaced Emain Macha

Emain Macha was one of the great royal sites of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland and the capital of the Ulaidh, the people who gave Ulster its name — the seat of Conchobar mac Nessa and the Red Branch in the Ulster Cycle. What archaeology found is stranger than the legend. Around 95 BC a huge roundhouse-like timber structure, likened to a temple, was built on the hilltop, then deliberately filled with stones, burnt down and buried under earth to make the mound that stands there now. Nobody is certain why.

Navan Fort: Emain Macha, Capital of the Ulaidh

Walk the parkland and find Gosford Castle among the trees — it is private apartments now, so it is a view, not a visit

Walk the walled garden and the arboretum in the demesne

Look for the deer, and find the gardens Swift helped lay out

Walk into Markethill, the estate town at the gates

James VI and I granted the Achesons land here in 1610 at the very start of the Plantation of Ulster, and two centuries later Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, had the London architect Thomas Hopper build him an enormous castle in the Norman revival style. The demesne became a forest park in 1958 and runs to 240 hectares of woodland and open parkland, with a walled garden, an arboretum and deer. Jonathan Swift visited Gosford and had a hand in laying out the gardens.

Gosford: Norman Revival Castle in 240 Hectares

Climb the Hill of The O'Neill and pick out how many of Ulster's nine counties you can see — seven of them are in view on a clear day

Find out how the Flight of the Earls in 1607 ended the Gaelic order in Ulster

Go through the Ranfurly House arts and visitor centre at the foot of the hill

Work out why a hill with this view was worth ruling a province from

The O'Neills ruled Ulster from this hill at Dungannon, and from it seven of the nine counties of Ulster are clearly visible from it — which is exactly why they chose it. Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, held out against the English crown from here, and when he and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, sailed from Rathmullan for Catholic Europe in September 1607, the old Gaelic order went with them — their lands were escheated and settled by Protestants from Britain in the Plantation of Ulster. The site now has a viewing platform on the summit.

The Hill of The O'Neill: Where Ulster Was Ruled

Count brent geese on the mudflats from September through the winter

Look for common seals hauled out on the pladdies at low tide

Take the ferry across the Narrows between Strangford and Portaferry

Work out how a field of drumlins became an archipelago of seventy islands

Strangford Lough is a drowned drumlin field — the sea came in over a landscape of small rounded glacial hills and left their tops as at least seventy islands and countless pladdies. The whole lough is an Important Bird Area. Common seals haul out on the rocks, basking sharks come in, and every autumn pale-bellied brent geese arrive here from Arctic Canada in numbers that make this one of their most important wintering grounds anywhere.