Find the portcullis still hanging at the gate

Ask the guide to point out what Essex's guns did to the walls in 1599

Climb the keep and look down on the Suir on both sides of the island

Find out how Essex took the castle in three days in 1599

Cahir Castle, one of the largest castles in Ireland, stands on a rocky island in the river Suir. Conchobar Ua Briain, King of Thomond, began it in 1142, and in 1375 it was granted to the Butlers, who enlarged it over the next three centuries. In 1599 the Earl of Essex brought Elizabeth's army and cannon against it and took it after a three-day siege; the damage his artillery did can still be read in the stone. The original portcullis still hangs at the gate. It came to the state after 1961 and was opened by the Office of Public Works in 1971.

Cahir Castle: The Fortress on an Island in the Suir

Cahir and Cashel

Rosslare

Twelve nights in a loop from Rosslare to Kerry and back: Cork Harbour and Kinsale, three nights in West Cork around Baltimore, Garnish Island and the Healy Pass, Killarney, then Cashel and Kilkenny.

South to Cork and Kerry from Rosslare

Cashel and the Suir

Dublin

A loop from the ferry: Viking Dublin, the Boyne tombs, medieval Kilkenny, the Rock of Cashel, the Copper Coast, the Hook and Glendalough.

Ireland's Ancient East: A Fortnight From Dublin Port

Tour the Swiss Cottage at Kilcommon near Cahir, an 1810 cottage orné attributed to Regency architect John Nash

Find the thatched, curved roofline and rustic timber verandah — designed to look like a rural retreat while serving as a fashionable entertaining space

Find the original Dufour wallpapers and picture the cottage's real use — entertaining the Cahir estate's guests, not everyday living

Walk from the Swiss Cottage along the River Suir, part of the same Cahir estate grounds

A cottage orné is a rich family's idea of a peasant cottage — deliberately rustic, expensively built, and never actually lived in. The Swiss Cottage at Kilcommon near Cahir is a noted example: thatched, with a curving roofline and timber verandas on several sides, put up around 1810 and attributed to John Nash, the Regency architect who later remodelled Buckingham Palace. It belonged to the estate of Lord and Lady Cahir, who used it for entertaining, and some rooms keep their original Dufour wallpapers, said to be among the first commercially produced Parisian papers. After years of neglect it was restored from 1985 by the Irish Georgian Society, the Port Royal Foundation and Sybil Connolly, and opened as a museum in 1989. It sits in its own grounds on the River Suir.

The Swiss Cottage: An Irish Cottage Orné

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

Drive the R668 from Clogheen over the Vee Gap towards Lismore

Stop at the hairpin viewpoint and look out over the Golden Vale to the Galtees

Walk down to Bay Lough, the corrie lake in the hollow below the road

Carry on down the far side towards Lismore, the way the old mail coach road went

The R668 climbs out of Clogheen and crosses the Knockmealdown Mountains between Sugarloaf Hill and Knockshanahullion through the Vee Gap — Bóthar na gCorr — on a hairpin so tight the road is named for it. The road over the gap is the old mail coach road from Lismore to Clogheen. From the top the Golden Vale lies out flat below you with the Galtees behind it, and Bay Lough sits in a hollow under Sugarloaf Hill just off the road.

The Vee: The Hairpin Over the Knockmealdowns

Find the Romanesque frescoes in Cormac's Chapel, the only ones to survive in Ireland

Look up at the round tower, the oldest building on the Rock

Walk the roofless cathedral and find out who took its roof off in the 1730s

Walk down across the fields to Hore Abbey below the Rock

Brian Boru was crowned on the Rock of Cashel in 977 and made it his capital, and in 1101 the King of Munster, Muirchertach Ua Briain, gave the fortress to the Church. The oldest and tallest building on it is the round tower, 28 metres high, from around 1100. Cormac's Chapel, begun in 1127 and consecrated in 1134, holds the only surviving Romanesque frescoes in Ireland, damaged by the waterlogged sandstone. The cathedral lost its roof in the 1730s on the orders of the Anglican archbishop Arthur Price. Below the rock stands Hore Abbey, given to the Cistercians around 1270 by Archbishop David Mac Cerbaill, who by tradition turned out the Benedictines after dreaming they meant to kill him.

The Rock of Cashel: Where Brian Boru Was Crowned

Complete the return hike to the summit of Galtymore at 917.9m, the highest point of both Tipperary and Limerick

Stand at the summit cairn and work out how far you can see in each direction

Find the conglomerate tors on the summit ridge, left standing because the ice never covered them

Look down into the corries cut into the northern side of the ridge

Return to the Glen of Aherlow on the northern side of the range

Galtymore stands 917.9m at the centre of a range running thirty kilometres east to west between Tipperary and Limerick, and it is the highest point of both counties. It has the fourth-highest topographic prominence of any peak in Ireland, which is what makes the view from the summit cairn so disproportionate to the climb — there is nothing near it of comparable height in any direction. The central ridge stood above the inland ice sheets, so its summits are capped with conglomerate tors rather than scoured bare.

Galtymore: The Roof of Tipperary and Limerick

Drive the R663 from Bansha to Galbally, the full length of the Glen of Aherlow valley road

Stop at the Christ the King viewpoint on Slievenamuck, erected in 1950, its hand raised in blessing over the road below

From the viewpoint, pick out Galtymore (917.9m), the highest of the Galtee range

Drive on to Galbally at the western end, then return the same way — a there-and-back of about 45km

The R663 runs the full length of the Glen of Aherlow between Bansha and Galbally, with the Christ the King statue — erected in 1950 on Slievenamuck, its hand raised in blessing over the road — as the valley's best-known viewpoint. The Galtee Mountains rise on the far side, with Galtymore, at 917.9m the highest of the Galtees and the high point of both Tipperary and Limerick.

Glen of Aherlow Valley Drive

Walk the sculpture park and find the first pieces, made on the bog in 2002

Cycle or walk the trails across the cutaway bog

Find out what the Mesolithic camp found at Boora says about the first people here

Walk down to the angling lakes and the nature reserve

Boora Bog was cut away for peat by Bord na Móna, and the lake that gave it its name was drained. What was left has been given back: a nature reserve kept by the Irish Wildlife Trust, angling lakes, and Sculpture in the Parklands, a 50-acre land and environmental sculpture park that began in 2002, when seven Irish and international artists spent three weeks making the first pieces out on the bog. Excavations here also found a temporary camp from the Mesolithic.

Lough Boora: Sculpture on a Cutaway Bog

Climb through Bunratty Castle to the Great Hall and the rooms above it

Find out how the O'Briens came to hold Bunratty around 1500

Walk the village street and farmhouses of the Folk Park

Book the medieval banquet held in the castle in the evening

The castle at Bunratty is the fourth on the site; the present building was begun in the 15th century, and around 1500 it passed to the O'Briens, the most powerful clan in Munster and later Earls of Thomond. It was bought and restored in the 1950s by the 7th Viscount Gort with the Office of Public Works and furnished with 15th- and 16th-century pieces. Since 1963 it has held medieval banquets in its hall at night, begun to give travellers from Shannon Airport something to do. Around it, Bunratty Folk Park recreates 19th-century rural Ireland, with farmhouses and a village street of shops, a pub and a school.