Dublin & the East

The east holds Ireland's densest prehistoric landscape. Farmers in the Boyne Valley raised the great passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth around 3100 BC, aligning Newgrange so that the midwinter sunrise lights its inner chamber, and the Hill of Tara in Meath later became the ceremonial seat of the high kings. Christianity brought monastic cities — Glendalough under St Kevin, Clonmacnoise on the Shannon under St Ciarán, Kells, Monasterboice and Kildare, whose foundation is linked to St Brigid. Viking raiders set up a fortified base on the Liffey in 841 that grew into Dublin, and founded Wexford too.

The Anglo-Norman invasion began on the Wexford coast in 1169, and within decades the newcomers had built Trim Castle, walled Kilkenny and Drogheda and made Dublin the capital of the English lordship. By the 15th century the Crown's direct control had shrunk to the Pale, a strip around Dublin whose name survives in "beyond the pale". Kilkenny hosted the Confederate Catholic assembly of the 1640s, Cromwell sacked Drogheda and Wexford in 1649, and William III's victory at the Boyne in 1690 settled Protestant rule for a century.

Georgian Dublin became the second city of the British Isles, but the Act of Union in 1800 drained its parliament and its wealth. The 1798 rebellion was fought hardest in Wexford, ending at Vinegar Hill; the Easter Rising of 1916 was a Dublin event, centred on the General Post Office. Since independence the capital has drawn in people from every county, and its commuter belt now reaches deep into Meath, Kildare, Wicklow and Louth.

Dublin has its own voice — a quick, sardonic accent and a habit of nicknaming its statues — and a literary record that won it UNESCO City of Literature status in 2010. Joyce set Ulysses on a single day, 16 June 1904, and Bloomsday is marked every year with readings, costume and Edwardian breakfasts. Dublin sessions and ballad pubs sustain traditional music alongside a strong rock and folk scene.

Sport divides the region by county. Dublin's Gaelic footballers won six All-Ireland titles in a row from 2015 to 2020, Croke Park is the GAA's national stadium, and hurling is a near-religion in Kilkenny, whose team, "the Cats", has the most All-Ireland titles, and in Wexford. Kildare is horse country: the Curragh is a plain of open grassland that hosts the Irish Derby, Punchestown holds a big jump-racing festival each spring, and stud farms line the roads around Kildare town.

The festival calendar includes Wexford Festival Opera in October and November, the Kilkenny Arts Festival and the Cat Laughs comedy festival, and St Brigid's Day in early February, a public holiday since 2023, with crosses woven from rushes. Monaghan takes pride in the poet Patrick Kavanagh of Inniskeen, and County Meath has small Irish-speaking Gaeltacht communities at Ráth Cairn and Baile Ghib, settled by families from Connemara in the 1930s.

This is where most of the Republic lives. County Dublin has about 1.5 million people, and the commuter towns around it — Navan, Naas, Newbridge, Bray, Swords — have grown rapidly. Further out are Drogheda and Dundalk in Louth, each with around 40,000, Athlone on the Shannon, and smaller county towns such as Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow, Mullingar, Tullamore, Portlaoise, Cavan and Monaghan.

Dublin's docklands hold the European headquarters of Google, Meta and other tech firms, and the city is the centre of finance, government and the universities; Intel's plant at Leixlip in Kildare is one of the country's biggest employers. Beyond the city the economy turns to cattle and dairy on the good land of Meath and Kildare, bloodstock, tillage in Wexford, farming in Monaghan and Cavan, and tourism. The midlands bogs of Offaly and Longford fed peat-fired power stations for decades; their closure has left communities looking for new work in renewable energy and bog restoration.

Housing dominates politics here: rents and prices in Dublin are among the highest in Europe, pushing young workers into long commutes by car and train. Weekday mornings clog the M50 and the approach roads, and weekends revolve around club GAA matches, the pub and the coast.

Dublin coddle — sausages, rashers, onions and potato stewed slowly in stock — is the city's own dish. Dublin Bay prawns, the local name for langoustines, and fish and chips from old Italian-run chippers remain local favourites, and Howth's harbour supplies much of the city's fish. Carlingford Lough in Louth is known for its oysters.

The rich pastures of Meath and Kildare produce much of the country's beef and lamb, and Wexford strawberries, sold from roadside stalls in summer, are famous in their own right. Boxty, a potato pancake made with grated raw potato, is a tradition in Cavan and the north midlands, and farmhouse cheeses, smoked fish and artisan bakeries appear at markets from Temple Bar to Kilkenny.

Drink is the region's global export. Guinness has been brewed at St James's Gate since Arthur Guinness signed his lease in 1759, and Smithwick's red ale grew up in Kilkenny. Irish whiskey has two midland names: Kilbeggan in Westmeath, a distillery dating from 1757, and Tullamore in Offaly, whose Tullamore D.E.W. is one of the best-selling Irish whiskeys. Dublin's Liberties district has been reborn as a distilling quarter.

Dublin needs several days: Trinity College's Long Room and the Book of Kells, the National Museum's gold and bog bodies, the National Gallery, Christ Church and St Patrick's cathedrals, Dublin Castle, the Georgian squares, Kilmainham Gaol, the Guinness Storehouse and the deer herds of the Phoenix Park. Coastal walks run round Howth Head and from Dún Laoghaire to Dalkey.

South of the city the Wicklow Mountains rise into Wicklow Mountains National Park: Glendalough's round tower and churches sit between two lakes, the Wicklow Way crosses the hills, and Powerscourt House has formal gardens and a high waterfall. Kilkenny's castle, St Canice's Cathedral and medieval lanes lie further southwest, with Jerpoint Abbey nearby. Wexford offers the Irish National Heritage Park, the long beaches of Curracloe, the Hook Head lighthouse, the Dunbrody famine ship at New Ross and Vinegar Hill above Enniscorthy.

North of Dublin, Newgrange and the Boyne Valley tombs, the Hill of Tara, Trim Castle, Monasterboice's high crosses, Mellifont Abbey and the site of the Battle of the Boyne lie within an hour of each other, with Carlingford and the Cooley Mountains beyond. Inland, Clonmacnoise, Birr Castle's 19th-century giant telescope and the Rock of Dunamase dot the midlands. In the far north, the lake counties of Cavan and Monaghan offer angling, cruising on Lough Oughter, the Shannon Pot where the river rises, the Cavan Burren's tombs and Castle Leslie at Glaslough.