Ireland 2025: Castles, Cliffs, Lambs and the Giant's Causeway

After a few days in Amsterdam, we came over to Ireland on May 23, 2025 and spent ten days there. We picked up a rental car, made a seaside village our base for a week, and finished with a run north through Dublin to the Giant's Causeway and Belfast.

Our base: Ardmore, County Waterford

We rented a house on the hill above Ardmore, a small village on the coast of County Waterford, with big windows looking out over the bay. It was home for seven nights.

There were donkeys in a field just down the road.

Ardmore is where Saint Declan is said to have brought Christianity to Ireland, before Saint Patrick. Up on the hill there is a ruined cathedral and a round tower about 30 metres tall, one of the best-preserved in the country.

We also walked the Ardmore cliff walk, a loop along the headland with big views of the sea.

Blarney Castle

On May 25 we drove to Blarney Castle, near Cork. We climbed the narrow stairs to the top, and yes, there was leaning back over the drop to kiss the Blarney Stone.

The Rock of Cashel and the Cliffs of Moher

May 26 was our big day out. First the Rock of Cashel, a cluster of medieval church buildings on a rocky hill in County Tipperary, and the ruins of Hore Abbey in the field below it.

Then west to the Cliffs of Moher. The fog and rain rolled in, so we mostly saw the cliffs as grey shapes, but we were all laughing anyway.

Lambs in the Wicklow Mountains

On May 29 we left Ardmore and drove north. On the way we stopped at a sheep farm in the Wicklow Mountains near Glendalough, where we saw the sheepdogs and the kids got to hold the lambs.

Dublin

We spent the evening of May 29 and the next day in Dublin. We crossed the Ha'penny Bridge, saw the Long Room at Trinity College's Old Library, wandered Temple Bar, toured the Jameson Distillery on Bow Street, and finished in a pub with live traditional music.

The Giant's Causeway

On May 31 we drove north into Northern Ireland to the Giant's Causeway, about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns left by an ancient volcanic eruption. The sun finally came out, and the kids climbed all over the columns.

Belfast

We finished in Belfast, where we visited Titanic Belfast, the museum next to the slipways where the Titanic was built. On our last day we also found an ancient stone dolmen out in the fields. On June 2 we flew on to Scotland.