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

Walk up to Tullyhogue Fort and into the ring of earthen banks on the hilltop

Find where the inauguration stone stood, outside the ring of banks rather than within it

Look out over the country the O'Neills ruled from this hill

Pair it with the Hill of The O'Neill at Dungannon to see both ends of the same power

Three kilometres south of Cookstown, on a low hill ringed by earthen banks and old trees, the kings of Tír Eoghain were inaugurated — not crowned in a cathedral but made king on open ground, in the Gaelic way, on the hill the Irish call Tulach Óg. The O'Neills were made here for centuries, the last of them Hugh O'Neill in 1595; Mountjoy's men smashed the inauguration stone, Leac na Rí, in 1602, and the Flight of the Earls five years later ended the Gaelic order in Ulster altogether. There is no building left. That is rather the point: what mattered was the hill, the ceremony and the people standing on it.

Tullyhogue: Where the O'Neills Were Crowned

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

Sit in the walled butterfly garden on a warm still day and count the species

Walk the shrub gardens and the lake in the old demesne

Walk the forest trails around the grounds

Find what is left of the manor house itself

Drum Manor is a quiet old estate outside Cookstown where the house is largely gone and the grounds remain — and inside one of the walled gardens they have planted specifically for butterflies, so on a warm still day in summer the enclosure fills with them. There are shrub gardens, a lake, and forest walks around it. It is a small place and it does one thing very well.

Drum Manor: The Butterfly Garden Near Cookstown

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

Take the guided tour and stand in the mill when the beetling engines are running

See the water wheel on the Ballinderry River that drives the whole thing

Find out what beetling actually did to linen and why it mattered

Beetling was the last stage of making linen: the woven cloth was pounded by rows of heavy wooden hammers to close the weave and beat a sheen into it, and the noise was deafening. Hugh Faulkner and his brother set up a bleaching works on the Ballinderry River near Cookstown in 1764, and the water-powered mill that grew out of it is the last functioning beetling mill in the United Kingdom. The National Trust runs it, and they still start the engine.

Wellbrook: The Last Working Beetling Mill in the UK

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

Drive or walk up to the Binevenagh cliff top and look out over the Magilligan peninsula

Look across Lough Foyle into Donegal from the escarpment

Walk a stretch of Benone Strand below the cliffs

Find the basalt columns in the escarpment face, the same rock as the Causeway

Binevenagh is the north-western end of the Antrim basalt — a great escarpment of cliff standing over the Magilligan peninsula and dominating the skyline above Bellarena, Downhill, Castlerock and Benone. It is both an Area of Special Scientific Interest and the centre of a 138 square kilometre AONB. From the top you look across Lough Foyle into Donegal and out along one of the longest beaches in Ireland.