Ireland Read Honestly

Ireland photographs as green because it rains as often as it does, and that fact explains most of the country before any history does. The west coast — the Burren's grey limestone in County Clare, the narrow roads of the Beara Peninsula, Achill Island where the Atlantic arrives with nothing between it and Newfoundland to slow it down — is where the weather and the land argue most visibly, and where the argument is worth watching.

Dublin is a capital city with the scale of a large town; nobody who lives there confuses it with London or Paris, and that is part of its appeal. The real distances are short by continental standards but the roads are narrow, and a hundred kilometres on a coastal route can take three hours without anyone doing anything wrong.

Go in the shoulder months — April, or September into early October — if the goal is to see the Cliffs of Moher without a coach park's worth of company. Go in July only if crowds are not a concern. Bring a coat that does not pretend to be waterproof; bring one that is.