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Charming Villages

Nearly everyone has a mind's-eye view of the perfect Irish village. Cozy huddles filled with charming calendar-ready cottages, mossy churchyards, and oozing with thatched-roof, pewter-and-china-dog atmosphere, these spots have a sense of once-upon-a-time tranquility that not even tour buses can ruin. Many are so nestled away they remain the despair of motorists, but then, no penciled itinerary is half as fun as stumbling upon these four-leaf clovers.

Adare, Co. Limerick. Right out of a storybook, this celebrated village of low-slung Tudor cottages is adorned with ivied churches and a moated castle from the days when knighthood was in flower.

Birr, Co. Offaly. The epitome of Georgian perfection, with a layout that curls along the contours of its famous castle to the west and enough asymmetrical quirks to make it interesting.

Cong, Co. Mayo. John Ford's The Quiet Man introduced this charmer to the world and the singular beauty of its whitewashed single-story cottages with tied-on thatched roofs.

Dunmore East, Co. Waterford. With a streetscape that snakes along its cove, Dunmore East has a mishmash of traditional architecture from thatched cottages to slated town houses that nestle together in a crimson cliff-side setting.

Glengarriff, Co. Cork. Set in a lush valley where the Caha Mountains vanish into the ocean, this comely village has lured visitors for centuries.

Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny. If you think Inistioge, with its perfect Irish village square and meandering pathways along the River Nore, looks like it was peeled straight from a movie set, you'd be right. Its streetscape was filmed in major movies, including Circle of Friends and Widow’s Peak.

Kinvara, Co. Galway. This village is picture-perfect, thanks to its gorgeous bay-side locale, great walks, and numerous pubs. North of the town is spectacularly sited Dunguaire Castle, noted for its medieval-banquet evenings.

Lismore, Co. Waterford. Set within some of Ireland's lushest pasturelands and lorded over by the Duke of Devonshire's castle, dreamy Lismore is popular with both romantic folk and anglers (the sparkling Blackwater here teems with salmon).

Roundstone, Co. Galway. Framed by the Twelve Bens mountains, with a pastel-color streetscape that faces the Atlantic Ocean, Roundstone is the most alluring village in Connemara.

Westport, Co. Mayo. On an inlet of Clew Bay, this lively little town's scenic setting includes a charming main street complete with cute painted pubs, Georgian buildings, and a triple-arched stone bridge in the middle of town all festooned with flowers and plants. Add Croagh Patrick Mountain in the background and Clew Bay with its hundreds of islands and you can see why this was once a vacation destination for the 18th-century gentry.

Movie Locations

Whether it's in a galaxy far, far away or on a war-torn beach in Normandy, Ireland's rugged landscape and medieval castles have played epic roles in major movies.

The Cliffs of Moher. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Dumbledore are perched on County Clare's famous cliffs, facing giant waves and an impenetrable coastline.

Connemara. Brendan Gleeson's portrayal of flawed Sergeant Gerry Boyle unleashing his caustic manner against the beautifully brooding backdrop of Connemara earned him a Golden Globe nomination for The Guard.

Co. Antrim. Strictly speaking, not a movie, but HBO's Game of Thrones has plucked out as many scene locations from Northern Ireland as it has characters, from the King's Road (the Dark Hedges) to Winterfell (Castle Ward and Shane's Castle).

Curracloe Beach. This County Wexford strand took on a French role as the scene for the U.S. arrival to World War II on D-Day in Steven Spielberg's epic war movie, Saving Private Ryan.

Dublin. Neil Jordan's biopic Michael Collins stages Dublin beautifully, earning it a cinematography Oscar nomination, with backdrops of Trinity College, the Ha'apenny Bridge and, of course, Kilmainhain Goal, which also appeared in the original Italian Job, starring Michael Caine.

Grafton Street, Dublin. One of Dublin's main shopping streets, Grafton Street has served as a backdrop for several music videos but it is best known for its supporting role in Indie film, Once, with Irish musician Glen Hansard.

Skellig Michael. Ahch-To (to Star Wars fans), Skellig Michael in County Kerry features throughout Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and its stubbornly present puffins inspired the entire species of Porgs.

Trim Castle. County Meath's castle doubled as York in Braveheart, the biopic of Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, starring Mel Gibson.

Yeats Tower (Thoor Ballylee), Connemara, and Cong. Galway's and Mayo's appearances in John Ford's classic, The Quiet Man, turned the town of Cong into a tourist attraction (still visited by fans today) and, no doubt, helped the movie earn an Oscar for cinematography in 1953.

Literary Haunts

Irish literature developed its distinctive traits largely because of Ireland's physical and political isolation. Yet the nation has produced a disproportionately large number of internationally famous authors for a country of its size, including four Nobel Prize winners—George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney. The list of literary notables is a whole lot longer and includes James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Seán O'Casey, Seán Ó Faoláin, Brian Friel, and Edna O'Brien. Indeed, the country's literary heritage is evident everywhere you go. In Dublin you'll find Joyce's Liffey; Dean Swift's cathedral; and the Abbey Theatre, a potent symbol of Ireland's great playwrights. W. B. opens up the county of Sligo; the Aran Islands were the inspiration of J. M. Synge; and Cork inspired the works of Frank O'Connor. Wherever you are in Ireland, its literary heritage is never far away.

Aran Islands, Co. Galway. See what inspired the dark genius of Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and the black comedy of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Bellaghy, Co. Derry. Located in the heart of the landscape that shaped his life and work, HomePlace visitor and arts center celebrates the life, inspiration, literature, and legacy of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, the late Seamus Heaney.

The Burren, Co. Clare. Walk the actual road through the Burren that is the setting, and title, of Man Booker Prize–winning author Anne Enright’s 2015 novel, The Green Road. J. R. R. Tolkien visited the West of Ireland on many occasions and spent considerable time in the Burren’s fantastical landscapes. An underground lake called Pol na Gollum (or Cave of Gollum) is often held up by fans as evidence that Middle-Earth, at least partly, is descended from here.

Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. Acclaimed Irish author Colm Tóibín was born and raised in this small town in the east of Ireland that would come to form the backdrop to many of Tóibín’s novels, among them Nora Webster and Brooklyn.

Limerick City, Co. Limerick. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes had thousands heading here to tour Angela's city and partake of the tearfulness of it all.

Sligo Town, Co. Sligo. Take in the town where William Butler Yeats grew up, then visit his grave in Drumcliff to view his beloved mountain, Ben Bulben.

Thoor Ballylee, Co. Galway. This restored 16th-century Norman tower house in Gort, just south of Galway City, was the summer home of W. B. Yeats. Yeats described the house as “a tower set by a stream’s edge,” and it served as the inspiration for his poems “The Winding Stair” and “The Tower.”

Trinity College, Co. Dublin. Founded by Queen Elizabeth I, this university provided the greats—Beckett, Wilde, Stoker—with 30 acres of stomping grounds.