31 Jan Mourne Mountains, County Down
It was in the Mournes I learnt that there is no better way to know the nerve of a mountain than by walking up a stream to its source. And by that I mean walking in the stream. Every step is a watery one, and...
General News
28 Jan St Andrews, Fife
Anyone who’s belted a little white ball around a fairway will probably have heard of St Andrews. Apart from its historical links with golf though, this is one of Scotland’s most charming and enjoyable towns to explore. Walking around The Scores, with the wide sweep...
21 Jan Ardmore Round Tower, County Waterford
Ardmore, with its smooth beach, its colour-washed cottages and green fields is the pleasantest of places. It was once an Episcopal see which for centuries ranked high among the high places of Ireland. For it is said to have been founded by St. Declan who...
17 Jan The Scottish Maelstrom, South Argyll
It may look innocuous on the map, but the capital Gulf of Corryvreckan – the 1km wide channel between the Northern end of Jura and the Island of Scarba – is home to one of the 3 most notorious tidal whirlpools in the world (the...
13 Jan Custom House, Dublin
The Custom House, erected between the years 1781 and 1791, at a cost of £546,000, is the finest public building in Dublin; it represents the flowering of Dublin commerce and Irish parliamentary power in the 18th century. James Gandon, whose master piece it was, and...
10 Jan Loch Lomond & Around
The ‘Bonny Banks’ and ‘Bonny Braes’ of Loch Lomond have long been Glasgow’s rural retreat – a scenic region of hills, lochs, and healthy fresh air within easy reach of Scotland’s largest city. Since the 1930’s Glaswegians have made a regular weekend exodus to the...
06 Jan Carnlough, County Antrim
Groined by deep glens and walled along the west by the bare hilltops and the tufted moors, this rim of arable that ends in foam… The lovely Nine Glens bite deeply into the basalts of the Antrim plateau and into the hard overlays of modern history....
04 Jan Cowal, South Argyll
The remote Cowal Peninsula is cut off from the rest of the country by the lengthy fjords of Loch Long and Lough Fyne – it’s an area more accessible by boat than by car. It is comprised of narrow hills and rugged lochs with only...
30 Dec Lower Lake, Killarney
To see the landscape of Tuscany for the first time is like looking at the Old Masters; only they have been cleaned and are life-size. To see the lakes of Killarney for the first time is to realise that this haunting luxuriance of mountain, waterfall,...
16 Dec Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary
A market town on the River Suir, long associated with the Butler family, later Earls of Ormond. A priory was established at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century for the canons regular of St Augustine. Later the lands formed part...