A visit to the Cliffs of Moher is one of six things you need to do in Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
A visit to the Cliffs of Moher is one of six things you need to do in Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like to live in a transparent bubble? Or read first-hand what the English thought of indigenous people in the South Pacific? What about gazing out over a band of cliffs, sculpted by the wind and sea, that contain 300 million years of fossilised history?
This is Ireland as you may not know it, with the following tips on how to explore the island.
1. The Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare
Famous for its abundant birdlife – the puffin parents push the younglings off the cliff and it’s literally “fly or die” – and for ferocious weather that has shaped the 300-metre-high cliffs for millennia.
The cliffs drew tourists to the area after the land owner, Cornelius O’Brien, built a tower (the first visitors’ centre) and picnic table near the edge of the precipice in the 1800s. He was known as a kind man who rented out his seaside residence to the wealthy but waived any rent for his workers during the potato famine of the mid-19th century.
It’s a wild place that’s still being shaped by Mother Nature’s powerful forces; the cliffs have grown over 300 million years as a river dumped sand, silt and clay into the marine basin.
The Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare are Ireland's most visited natural attraction. Photo / Getty Images
2. Ballynahinch Castle, Co Galway
Step into a snapshot of a luxurious point in time, including chandeliered rooms with open fireplaces, well-loved first-edition books in the library and Ballynahinch-inspired artwork on the walls. This estate has a rich history of previous owners, including a cricket-mad maharaja and a British MP with a hatred of cruelty to animals.
It also has gorgeous nature walks through an expansive estate and a certain ambience that has made the castle a favourite among artists and writers.
Ballynahinch Castle and Lake in Co Galway. Photo / Derek Cheng
3. Sleeping in a nature bubble, Co Fermanagh
Unplug and relax into a perfect nature bubble – literally – at the unique luxury accommodation of Finn Lough in Northern Ireland. The 30-hectare property features a lakeside sauna as well as 18 bubble domes that are nestled into forest surroundings.
The former lets you sweat out all your toxins and then step outside to ease yourself into the lake, allowing the fresh waters to leave your skin with the cold fuzzies before you rush back into the sauna’s warm embrace.
The latter seems at first like somewhat of a gimmick: why not sleep in an open-air bivvy where you don’t have a transparent plastic barrier between you and nature’s best offerings, including the night sky or the glow of the Northern Lights?
The answer arrived later in the night with the soft patter of the rain quickly turning into more of a soothing drumbeat that makes you grateful for a roof over your head, even one you can see through.
The luxury bubble pods of Finn Lough are wrapped in plastic and have no wifi to encourage you to unplug and embrace nature. Photo / Derek Cheng
The Beare family set up this nature enclave to escape The Troubles – the civil war between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland – and established the bubble domes after seeing them at a trade show in Barcelona.
The estate includes a restaurant that offers the best food in Ireland: dissolve-in-your-mouth beef tartare, truffle sourdough and chicken of perfect crispness.
And if you time your nature walk in the morning to perfection, you can delight in a lakeside sunrise.
4. Centuries-old books in Armagh Robinson Library
“Savage as these beings certainly were towards our people, and to each other, yet they could unbend, and divert themselves with the softer amusements of singing and dancing.” So reads a sentence in the 1802 edition of New South Wales, Account of the English Colony, which sits on a shelf in the library among other historical books in this hidden gem of a library.
Many of these writings would be cancellable today but they offer a fascinating insight of a snapshot in time – including interactions between the English and Māori in New Zealand.
The library is located in a traditional Georgian building and includes wall-to-wall books, which are considered such treasures that they need to be handled with gloves. Among them is a two-volume first edition of Gulliver’s Travels with Jonathan Swift’s handwritten notes in the margins.
But the collection is so vast – 46,000 books, we were told, dating as far back as the 16th century – as to tickle someone’s curiosity no matter what subjects they hold dear.
“700 years of oppression!” So say the Irish of being ruled by the English. This is nowhere more evident than on a tour of this castle, built around 1200, which not only enlightens you about the country’s colourful history – including falling pigs and explosive diarrhoea – but also provides insights into the ghostly ghouls that supposedly still haunt the castle corridors at night.
King John's Castle, in Limerick, makes for a great morning of exploration.
6. Slip into the slime, the Wild Atlantic Way
A seaweed bath – which the Irish have practised for 300 years – in one of many wellness spas on the west coast will rejuvenate your skin, hair, mindfulness and even your armpits while hypnotising you into a deep well of relaxation. Is it science-based? Does it matter, as long as it makes you feel good?
