54 Best Sights in Dublin Environs, Ireland

The 108-foot-high Round Tower, dating from the 12th century, is the second-highest in Ireland (the highest is in Kilmacduagh in County Galway). Extraordinary views across much of the Midlands await if you're energetic enough to climb to the top.

The nearly 100-foot-high Round Tower, adjacent to St. Colmcille's House, dates back to 1076 and is in almost perfect condition. The tower was likely used as a defensive hideout by local monks during an invasion; they would climb up the rope ladder with their valuables and pull it up after them. Its top story has five windows, not the usual four, each facing an ancient entrance into the medieval town. You can't go inside, but just standing beside it gives a real sense of the inventiveness and desperation of the Viking-fearing monks.

Part of Trim Castle and facing the river is the Royal Mint, a ruin that illustrates Trim's political importance in the Middle Ages. It produced coins with colorful names like "Irelands" and "Patricks" right up into the 15th century.

North of Slane is the 500-foot-high Slane Hill, where St. Patrick proclaimed the arrival of Christianity in 433 by lighting the Paschal fire. From the top you have sweeping views of the Boyne Valley. On a clear day, the panorama stretches from Trim to Drogheda, a vista extending 40 km (25 miles).

The Church of Ireland St. Brigid's Cathedral is where the eponymous saint founded a religious settlement in the 5th century. The present cathedral, with its stocky tower, is a restored 13th-century structure. It was partially rebuilt around 1686, but restoration work wasn't completed for another 200 years. The stained-glass west window of the cathedral depicts three of Ireland's greatest saints: Brigid, Patrick, and Columba. In pre-Christian times Druids gathered around a sacred oak that stood on the grounds and from which Kildare (Cill Dara), or the "church of the oak," gets its name. Also on the grounds is a restored firepit reclaimed from the time of Brigid, when a fire was kept burning—by a chaste woman—in a female-only temple. Interestingly, Brigid started the place for women, but it was she who asked monks to move here as well.

Similar in appearance to St. Kevin's Church at Glendalough and Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, St. Colmcille's House is an 11th-century church on a much older site. It measures about 24 feet square and nearly 40 feet high, with a steeply pitched stone roof. The nearby tourist office can help you get inside and it's well worth it to feel what the ancient monastic life was like.

Four elaborately carved High Crosses stand in the church graveyard; you'll find the stump of a fifth in the marketplace—it was used as a gallows during the 1798 uprising against British rule.

There were once 11 passages through the city walls, but the 13th-century St. Laurence's Gate is one of the last that remains. With two four-story drum towers, it's one of the most perfect examples in Ireland of a medieval town gate.

Built in 1839, St. Mary's Church has a late-18th-century wood carving of the Crucifixion, the work of a local artist, Edward Smyth. At the time he was the greatest sculptor Ireland had produced since the Middle Ages. On Friday, the Fair Green, beside the church, hosts a bustling outdoor market.

Standing at the center of the village is the excellently preserved St. Mochta's House, an oratory dating from the 11th century. The steeply pitched stone roof can be reached by a stairway. The house is freely accessible—but watch out for cattle (and their droppings) in the surrounding field.

Built between 1835 and 1847, this grand cathedral was designed when the Gothic Revival was at its height. With its buttresses and mosaics lining the chancel and the side chapels, it was modeled on the 15th-century King's College Chapel at Cambridge, England. The fine exterior was built in Newry granite, and the high altar and pulpit are of carved Caen stone.

This church dates from early in the 19th century, but the square tower is from an earlier structure built in 1449. Bishops were enthroned here as early as 1536. The stained-glass window on the western side was the first commission of Edward Burne-Jones, the leading British Pre-Raphaelite.

What was once a center for the training of Catholic priests is now one of Ireland's most important lay universities. The visitor center chronicles the college's history and that of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Stroll through the university gardens—the Path of Saints or the Path of Sinners. At the entrance to St. Patrick's College are the ruins of Maynooth Castle, the ancient seat of the Fitzgerald family. The Fitzgeralds' fortunes changed for the worse when they led the ill-fated rebellion of 1536. The castle keep, which dates from the 13th century, and the great hall are still in decent condition.

A severe church within an enclosed courtyard, the 18th-century Anglican St. Peter's is rarely open except for Sunday services. It's worth a peek for its setting and for the fine views of the town from the churchyard.

The Gothic Revival Roman Catholic St. Peter's Church houses the preserved head of St. Oliver Plunkett. Primate of all Ireland, he was martyred in 1681 at Tyburn in London; his head was pulled from the execution flames.

Between the River Vartry and the road to Dublin stands the Protestant church, which incorporates various unusual details: a Romanesque door, 12th-century stonework, fine pews, and an atmospheric graveyard. The church is topped by a copper, onion-shape cupola, added as an afterthought in 1771.

One of the most pleasant villages of southern County Meath, Summerhill has a large square and a village green with a 15th-century cross.

This museum covers the history of Irish steam engines, handsome machines used both in industry and agriculture—for churning butter or threshing corn, for example. There's also a fun collection of model locomotives. Engineers are present on "live steam days" every Sunday and on bank holidays. The adjoining Lodge Park Walled Garden is included in the price and is open year-round for a leisurely summer stroll.

This bank building has an 18th-century square granite edifice with a cupola. It now contains the tourist office.

The long-abandoned but still largely intact castle was once the largest Anglo-Norman fortress in Ireland. Trim Castle dominates present-day Trim from its 2½-acre site, which slopes down to the river's placid waters. Built by Hugh de Lacy in 1173, the castle was soon destroyed, then rebuilt from 1190 to 1220. The ruins include an enormous keep with 70-foot-high turrets flanked by rectangular towers. The outer castle wall is almost 500 yards long, and five D-shape towers survive. So impressive is the castle that it was used as a medieval backdrop in the movie Braveheart. You are free to roam the castle, but the admission price includes a house tour.

Among the town's landmarks is its long railway viaduct, which towers over the river. Built around 1850 as part of the railway line from Dublin to Belfast, it's still in use and is a splendid example of Victorian engineering. Its height above the River Boyne makes the viaduct Drogheda's most prominent landmark.

The town's most appealing area is Wicklow Harbour. Take South Quay down to the pier; Bridge Street leads you to a bridge across the River Vartry leading to a second, smaller pier at the northern end of the harbor. From this end, follow the shingle beach, which stretches for 5 km (3 miles); behind the beach is the Broad Lough, a lagoon noted for its wildfowl.

Just above Market Square, the town's old jail has been converted into a museum and heritage center where it's possible to trace your genealogical roots. The "gruff gaoler" escorts you to your prison cell before computer displays, actors, and life-size models tell the gruesome history of the prison, from the 1798 rebellion to the late 19th century. The new "Gates of Hell" virtual reality experience adds an extra thrill.

On a ridge overlooking Trim Castle, the Yellow Steeple was built in 1368 and is a remnant of the Augustinian abbey of St. Mary's. Founded in the 13th century, it was the site of a great medieval pilgrimage to a statue of the Blessed Virgin. Much of the tower was deliberately destroyed in 1649 to prevent its falling into Cromwell's hands, and today only the striking 125-foot-high east wall remains.