Famous Landmarks in Ireland: 10 Sites Worth Seeing
Six days across the island west to the Atlantic: two in Dublin for the literature, the history, and the pubs that earned the reputation, two in Galway on the edge of the Irish-speaking west, and two in Kerry, where the mountains meet the sea and the road gets famous. See the full itinerary.
From the same hand-researched library as our Ireland itinerary. Last reviewed 2026-08-08.
Dublin
A small capital that produced four Nobel literature laureates and spends a lot of energy pretending not to be proud of it. The Georgian streets, the Liffey, and a rebellion that started in a post office are all within a walk, and the pub is still where the city does its talking.
1
Trinity College and the Book of Kells
The 1592 university and its ninth-century illuminated gospels, under the barrel-vaulted Long Room. Book the timed slot; the library reopened its upper gallery in 2025 after a conservation programme that removed every book.
Dublin
2
Kilmainham Gaol
The prison where the 1916 Rising leaders were executed, and where the modern Irish state effectively begins. Guided entry only, timed, and sold out days ahead in summer.
Dublin
3
Christ Church Cathedral
Founded about 1030 by Dublin's Norse king, with a vast crypt, the largest in Britain or Ireland, holding a mummified cat and rat found in the organ pipes.
Dublin
4
General Post Office, O'Connell Street
The building the rebels seized at Easter 1916, still a working post office, still carrying bullet marks on its columns. The witness-history exhibition inside is the clearest account of that week.
Dublin
Galway
A small harbour city that behaves like a much bigger one, street musicians on Shop Street year-round, a festival calendar that never quite stops, and the Gaeltacht beginning just outside the city where Irish is still the working language. It is also the launch point for Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher.
5
Spanish Arch and the Claddagh
A fragment of the 1584 city wall on the riverbank, beside the old fishing village that gave the world the Claddagh ring. The Corrib runs past fast and cold.
Galway
6
Galway Cathedral
Finished in 1965 in cut limestone with a green copper dome, built on the site of the old city gaol. Startlingly young for a building that looks Renaissance.
Galway
7
Kylemore Abbey
A Victorian castle on a Connemara lake, built as a gift and now run by Benedictine nuns, with a restored six-acre walled garden. The most photographed building in the west.
Galway
Killarney and County Kerry
Ireland's oldest national park, its highest mountains, and the coast road that made the country's reputation abroad. Killarney is a small town that has been receiving visitors since the 1750s and is entirely unembarrassed about it, which makes it an easy base for two days of very good scenery.
8
Muckross House and Gardens
A Victorian mansion on the lake shore, given to the state in 1932 to found the national park. The working traditional farms beside it show Kerry life before rural electrification.
Killarney and County Kerry
9
Ross Castle
A fifteenth-century tower house on the edge of Lough Leane, the last place in Munster to fall to Cromwell's forces. Boats leave from here for the lakes.
Killarney and County Kerry
10
Skellig Michael
A sixth-century monastery on a pyramid of rock eleven kilometres out in the Atlantic, and a UNESCO site. Landings run roughly May to September, cap out at 180 people a day, and cancel on any real swell, treat a booking as a maybe.
Killarney and County Kerry
Museums, parks, and neighborhoods are on the full Ireland itinerary, sequenced into a realistic day-by-day plan with transport between cities.
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