How to Spend a Long Weekend in Dublin

I've realised recently that there's a lot of places close to home that I've yet to visit. I've only been to Italy for a wedding and went to Paris in 2014 after everyone kept seeming horrified that I'd never been. My first trip to Ireland last year didn't take in the capital city of Dublin, but as my favourite cousin moved there last March, it was the perfect excuse to go and explore.

Four Great Places to Have Brunch in Dublin

On my recent trip to Dublin, I had three things in mind: quality time with my favourite cousin, a trip to the Guinness Storehouse and a lot of brunch. In four short days, I clocked up four amazing brunches, spread out around the city. Each one offered something completely different from your standard eggs benedict and prosecco situations (not that those two things are bad in any way whatsoever). First up:

San Lorenzo's Brunch of Champions

Fishing With the Locals in Glengarriff, Ireland

If there's one stereotype I'd heard about the Irish which turned out to be completely true, it's that they are unbelievably friendly. During our road trip, conversation with locals flowed as easily as the Guinness - in pubs, hotels, cafes, we received tip-offs, recommendations and warm welcomes from everyone we met.

Ireland Road Trip: Driving the West Coast

The thing that really makes a driving holiday in Ireland is the stunning coast line. Around every corner you're hit with a new view, totally different from the last. Sometimes you see lush greenery, other times you get jagged, hard rock faces - all overlooking crashing waves that hide the small hope of seeing a visiting whale or seal.

Ireland Road Trip: Driving to Clonakilty

We knew that once we left Cork we just wanted to find the sea. We wanted to take coastal driving routes and see little villages and towns that we'd never heard of before, and once you're a few kilometres down the road that's exactly what you find. We knew we wanted to get to Clonakilty for our next B&B, but we had all day to get there so we headed up, up, up some steep roads to get a real sense of why Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle.

Ireland Road Trip: Kissing the Blarney Stone

I wasn't that bothered about visiting Blarney Castle after reading a few reviews that said it was overcrowded, overhyped and overpriced. But it was raining and we needed somewhere to go that wasn't a million miles from Cork where we were still based, so we made our way there praying that the weather would improve.

Ireland Road Trip: Kinsale and Cobh

One quiet weekday evening, my boyfriend and I were watching Calvary on Netflix. The film is a black comedy set in rural Ireland which got us thinking, why not drive around the Emerald Isle for our next holiday? So, a few week's later we flew into Cork, hired a car and roughly planned a route along the south-west coast to see some rugged coastlines. We stayed in Cork for three nights, using it a our base to explore some of the little towns and villages nearby.