Inistioge (“Teoc’s or Tighe’s Island”) is a most pleasant example of the little Irish village with church, cross, spirit-grocery, petrol-pump grouped round a quiet shadowy square. Time stands still, and the children under the lime-trees wait happily for the bus that has forgotten to come....
As Edinburgh expanded in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, many old tenements were demolished and new bridges were built to link the Old Town to the newly built areas to its North and South. South Bridge (built between 1785 and 1788) and George...
“Praise the beach when you come to it”, runs the Gaelic saying, and Rossnowlagh (the Wood of the Apples) is entirely praiseworthy. Donegal, with its thousand tongues stuck out at the sea, has more than its fair share of fine bays and creeks and beaches....
From the rugged ridges of Ben More and the black basalt crags of Burg to the blinding white sand, rose-pink granite and emerald waters that fringe the Ross, Mull can lay claim to some of the finest and most varied scenery in the Inner Hebrides....
Glasgow is regenerating and evolving at a dizzying pace – style cats beware, this city is edgy, modish and downright ballsy. Its Victorian architectural legacy is now swamped with cutting-edge style bars, world-class venues to tickle your taste buds, and a hedonistic club culture that...
Mount Brandon, austere and impressive at all times, cloudy at most times, dominates Brandon Bay across whose waters the light and biddable curraghs – lath-and-canvas canoes – have bounded for a millennium and more. It was from this bay, they say, that St. Brendan and...
Edinburgh’s Old Town stretches along a ridge to the east of the Castle, and tumbles down Victoria Street to the broad expanse of the Grassmarket. It’s a jagged and jumbled maze of masonry riddled with close’s (alleys) and winds (narrow lanes), stairs and vaults, and...
On the road from Limerick to Killarney is Adare (Ath Dara, the ford of the oaks) on the river Maigue. In its well-wooded setting, with medieval church ruins and neat thatched cottages, it is a surprisingly lovely village. Once an O’Donovan stronghold, it was taken...
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...
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...