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This 700-acre centre prides itself on helping to protect the environment, breeding and reintroducing animals to their natural habitats. One of its great successes is the saving of the native white-tailed eagle that was threatened with extinction in Ireland.

The best preserved early Christian site in Ireland is believed to have been built some time between the 6th and 9th centuries AD. It was exquisitely constructed, using Neolithic techniques, with fine dry-stone corbelling to ensure the structure was waterproof.

The pleasant, bustling regional capital started life as a fortress of the O’Connors of Connacht. Colonized in 1232 by Anglo-Normans, it became a prosperous seaport: some fine buildings survive, notably 16th-century Lynch’s Castle (now a bank), and 14th-century St Nicholas’s Church. A great atmosphere, with plenty of music and traditional shops.

Galway City

The Causeway, a designated a World Heritage Site since 1986, is a truly remarkable natural spectacle, its thousands of extraordinary hexagonal pillars of basalt rock clustered like a gigantic piece of honeycomb. The rocks descend from seafront cliffs into the water and disappear from view. Supposedly created by legendary warrior Finn MacCoul as his stepping stones to Scotland (see Finn and the Salmon of Knowledge), the Causeway was really created by a volcanic eruption 60 million years ago. There’s a useful visitors’ centre nearby.

A large part of the charm of this important monastic site is its location. The name translates as the “valley of the two lakes”: the Upper Lake provides some of the most splendid scenery, with wooded slopes and a plunging waterfall, while the Lower Lake has a feeling of spirituality with the monastic ruins all around. St Kevin, a member of the Leinster royal family, founded the monastery during the 6th century and it became a renowned centre of Celtic learning.

Upper Lake, Glendalough