Hook Head and Wexford: A Long Weekend from Rosslare

Editor's note

One night near Wexford town. From October to April the North Slob holds up to 10,000 Greenland white-fronted geese, around a third of the world's population; the BirdWatch Ireland observatory is on site, and the reserve trail has hides. Outside those months, walk the trail and count the species you can name. Curracloe Strand, eight kilometres from town, is a long dune-backed beach with boardwalks through the dunes. With Ballinesker Beach it stood in for Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan, filmed in 1997, and it played the Irish beach in Brooklyn. Swim off the strand.

Editor's note

Two nights on the Hook Peninsula. William Marshal founded Tintern Abbey around 1200 after vowing, in a storm at sea, to build one wherever he landed, hence its name, Tintern de Voto. Duncannon Fort is the star-shaped fortress Elizabeth I built in 1587–88 against the Spanish Armada, and you can tour it. Drive the full loop to Hook Lighthouse, one of the oldest working lighthouses in the world, past Loftus Hall, sold as Ireland's most haunted house. At Dunbrody Abbey, walk the length of the roofless nave to the crossing tower, then try the hedge maze across the road, one of only two full-size mazes in Ireland.

Editor's note

One night at Enniscorthy, the last before the crossing home. The United Irishmen were decisively defeated on Vinegar Hill on 21 June 1798. Climb to the old windmill tower that served as rebel headquarters and pick out the Slaney crossings and the roads the British used to encircle the camp. The National 1798 Rebellion Centre is in the town below. At Ferrycarrig, the Irish National Heritage Park tells the story of settlement from the Mesolithic to 1169 in sixteen reconstructed dwellings. The guided tour runs from a Mesolithic camp to a Viking harbour, and the hill of Carrig holds the excavation of one of the first Norman forts in Ireland.