7) Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin

Featured in many a rebel song and occupying a notoriously dark place in Irish history, Kilmainham Gaol should be high on the list of Dublin’s best places to visit for those with any interest in Ireland’s troubled past. It was here that the leaders of the 1916 Uprising were brought and, after being convicted of High Treason, executed in the prison yard. The only one spared was future Irish President Eamon De Valera who, by virtue of his American citizenship, didn’t suffer the same grisly fate.

Dating from 1796, the prison was a dank vile institution that housed those guilty of such misdemeanours as being unable to pay their train fares and, during the famine, the destitute and hungry. In Irish eyes, Kilmainham became an irrevocable symbol of oppression and persecution.

8) Galway

A city streaked with canals on the Corrib River, Galway is affectionately called the “City of the Tribes”. That name recalls the 14 families that controlled trade and politics on Galway from the 13th to the 19th centuries.

And what’s exciting is that there are still hints of the tribes to be found, like Lynch’s Castle, a 16th-century fortified limestone house with the Lynch coat of arms on its front.

Galway is a hotbed of traditional Irish music, as you’ll find out walking the lively pedestrian streets of the Latin Quarter, where buskers abound and there’s always music and dancing in the pubs.

In the bay you can sail to the verdant Aran Islands pummelled by the Atlantic and where it feels like time has stood still for hundreds of years, while on land the Wild Atlantic Way will get you to two National Parks inside 90 minutes of Galway.

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