49 Outdoors- Other to Explore in Leinster

Avondale House, birthplace and home of Charles Stewart Parnell , is set in a magnificent 500 acre forest park near Rathdrum in County Wicklow. The river Avonmore flows through the park on its way towards the Irish Sea. The House is now a museum. This interesting Georgian house was built in 1777, and contains fine original plasterwork and the Parnell family furniture.

Possibly one of the most intriguing sites in Carlingford and Cooley Peninsula. Often referred to as the Famine Village. It is a Deserted Village located on the South Commons, People often wonder how old it is and was it a famine village. These were the arable plots: the families probably really lived off the 450 acres of commonly held grazing that surrounded them.

The Barrow Way is a 114km long distance walking trail along the River Barrow in the South East of Ireland. It rises in the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the southern midlands, and flows to join its two ‘sisters’, the Nore and the Suir, before flowing into the Celtic Sea at Waterford Harbour. It is designated as a National Waymarked Trail by the National Trails Office of the Irish Sports Council and is managed by Waterways Ireland.

This is an international centre for peatland education, conservation and research run by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council. Peatlands are made up of dead plant material and they are home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. Raised bogs have been growing in Ireland for the past 10,000 years.

Clara Bog is the finest remaining example of a raised bog in Ireland today. The nature reserve is home to many protected wildlife species. The site is protected under a number of national and international designations including National Nature Reserve, a Special Area of Conservation, Ramsar Wetland Site, Natura 2000 site, and Natural Heritage Area.

The Broadmeadow viaduct is a rail bridge carrying the main Dublin to Belfast railway across the estuary of the Broadmeadow River, about 13 kilometres north of Dublin, Ireland. Just north of Malahide village, it is approximately 180 metres (600 feet) long and is a section of a longer crossing constructed as an embankment.

Brú na Bóinne is one of the most important prehistoric megalithic sites in Europe drawing thousands of visitors daily. Each of the tombs has their own myths to explore against the beautiful backdrop of the gently meandering River Boyne. The archaeological landscape within Brú na Bóinne is dominated by the three well-known large passage tombs, Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth, built some 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic or Late Stone Age.

Callan Motte is a motte-and-bailey and National Monument in Callan, Ireland.The eastward facing base of the Motte is situated approximately 100m from the King's River and its floodplain. This floodplain extends along the western riverbank, interrupted only by a small series of riverside residences adjoining both sides of the bridge.

Carriglass Manor is one the last remaining walled estates in Ireland and covers 600 acres of pasture, meadow and wood. Species include oaks, beeches, ash and sycamore trees.

This is an outdoor activity park set in 80 acres of woodland with a river, two lakes and imaginative indoor spaces. There are so many activities here and also it is flourished with natural beauty.

Causey Farm is a working farm which is home to cattle, sheep, ponies, pigs (and often piglets), hens, geese and a noisy gaggle of giggling geese.The Murtagh family breeds and trains sheepdogs and visitors can see them working in the fields during their visit. The small herd of Connemara ponies, natives of the west of Ireland calmly welcome a friendly pat or a handful of grass as they pass along the farm trails through fertile grassland.

Clara Bog is the finest remaining example of a raised bog in Ireland today. Raised bogs once covered 310,000 hectares in Ireland but today just 7% remains intact. This forms over 50% of the remaining area of uncut raised bog in North West Europe. The nature reserve is home to many protected wildlife species. The installation of a 1km-looped timber boardwalk with interpretive panels at Clara Bog has provided for local recreation and tourism.

The Corlea Trackway is an Iron Age trackway, or togher, near the village of Keenagh, south of Longford, County Longford, in Ireland. The trackway is situated in an area which is the site of industrial-scale mechanised peat harvesting by the Bord na Móna, principally to supply the peat-fired power stations of the Electricity Supply Board.

This is the remains of an extinct volcano and rises from the Bog of Allen in County Offaly. The mound at the summit Croghan Hill is thought to be a bronze age burial place. It is believed that a Bishop MacCaille had his church there and lived around the time of St Patrick in the fifth century. Though only 232 m high it commands extensive views of the surrounding midland counties.

Cullenstown Strand is one of Wexford’s many award winning beaches located on the East Coast near the small village of Cullenstown. The beach is a short 5 minute drive from Bannow, where the Normans landed back in 1169 at Bannow Bay. An iconic location for a short picnic and also there are so many things to see and do here.

A beautiful footpath along the coast connects the beaches of Donabate. It leads past impressive cliffs and offers magnificent views over the Irish Sea and Lambay Island. It is an iconic location for a walk and also there are so many things to see and do here.

Durrow is the site of one of the earliest and most important monastery founded by St Columcille about 550. Largely undisturbed, the site is an early medieval monastic complex of ecclesiastical and secular monuments, visible and sub-surface. The extant monuments at the site include a large ecclesiastical enclosure, five Early Christian grave slabs, a fine mid-ninth century high cross and so more.

The Hook Peninsula is a peninsula in County Wexford, Ireland. It has been a gateway to south-east Ireland for successive waves of newcomers, including the Vikings, Anglo-Normans and the English. The coastline offers a beach a day for a fortnight and is one of the special attractions of this area.

The Irish National Heritage Park is an open-air museum near Wexford which tells the story of human settlement in Ireland from the Mesolithic period right up to the Norman Invasion in 1169. It has 16 reconstructed dwellings including a mesolithic camp, a neolithic farmstead, a portal dolmen, a cyst grave, stone circle, medieval ringfort, monastic site, crannóg and a Viking harbour.