https://visitwicklow.ie/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

A Wild Rover for many the year

14th October 202514th October 2025 funtime65

I’ve been a Wild Rover for many the year but have yet to take the lead of an award-winning coach company which knows Ireland like, well the back of their paw.

Now Wild Rover Tours provide day tours from Dublin to all the favourites.

So that’ll be the Cliffs of Moher & Galway and their award-winning Northern Ireland Highlights tours.

Including Belfast, Titanic Quarter and the Giant’s Causeways.

All of which should be on every Hibernophile’s list.

The Garden of Ireland is rosy

But you’ll not be surprised to see that we’ve alighted on our old stomping ground of Wicklow, the Garden of Ireland.

Wild Rover has packaged in Glendalough, Wicklow & Kilkenny and even sheep farm and dog trials.

The 6th-century Kilkenny City is known for its 6th century monastery built in honour of St Canice and was once capital of Confederate Ireland.

These days it’s the capital of hurling.

Wild Rover will offer you a 45-minute guided walking tour of the narrow streets and the grounds of the Norman castle which dates from 1172.

And learn its storied history, the site of the earliest recorded witch trial, the battles with Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads, the Vikings presence and its boast today of being the Cultural Capital of Ireland.

Braveheart territory

No Irish coach tour would be complete with a trip through mountains and glens.

And if you can almost feel like you’re stomping through history then it is because you are.

With Wicklow Gap and Wicklow Mountains film location of movies such as Braveheart, Excalibur, PS, I Love you and the TV series Vikings

The Glendalough valley is of course a much-trodden path for anyone who has had the fortune to live in these parts.

And you’ll enjoy a 30-minute guided walking tour in the ruins of St Kevin’s Monastery.

And see the 30m 1th-century granite round tower standing over 30 metres, built by monks to protect themselves from those marauding Vikings.

Dog days

Now where Wild Rover scores above the other tours for us is that you can truly go native with. say the sheep dog trial.

A favourite of my Dear Old Dad’s when he was a-courting my Donegal mum back in the day… us Glaswegians know how to woo a woman.

And WR afford the visitor the opportunity to join a real Irish shepherd at work together with his best friend the Border Collie sheepdog.

The dog, listening to the whistling sounds from the shepherd, will herd the sheep across fields.

Through gates and fencing into corrals, out again over ditches around trees and right to your feet.

And depending on the time of the year you will also have the opportunity to hold and feed a baby lamb.

And all for just €40 from Dublin’s Fair City.

Countries, Ireland

Thinking outside the telephone box

14th September 2025 funtime65

It has always been a sign that they do things differently in Ireland to Britain and they’re still thinking outside the telephone box.

A retro young Seventies woman occupies the green Telefón box opposite our Parkview Hotel in Newtownmountkennedy in Co. Wicklow.

Where once she would be scrambling for her pennies to put into the slot to make her call (ask your parents).

She is now a mannequin curio.

Nor would she look out of place in the time capsule that is Johnnie Fox’s in Glencullen just up the road.

And billed as the highest pub in Ireland and where we sup Guinnesses and house stout, with pilots and new pals, local and afar.

Step back in time

Old Woman: And mine at their grand estate front

We are on a whistlestop three-nighter back in my Dear Old Mum’s Irish heartland.

Retracing our own steps from 13 years living in Greystones and working in rugby central Ballsbridge in Dublin 4.

And will mark her today in what would have been her 97th birthday.

Although, of course, she walks with us every day.

And danced with us, Teasy’s Baby, and Daddy’s Daughterie last night.

As the house singer belted out Van Morrison’s Brown-Eyed Girl.

And we worked off our bangers and mash and Murphy’s stout.

The Garden of Ireland

Today, we breakfast at the gardens which give this bordering county to Dublin its reputation.

And old friends, the Slazengers, at their grand estate and exclusive hotel, shopping Mecca and wedding venue.

In Powerscourt, near Bray.

Before taking over the Grand Hotel, Malahide in northern Co. Dublin.

Home from home for my parents on family get-together.

With my mum’s doppelgänger sister, Nance, matriarch of the McNultys and the greater brood.

Malahide and Mums

We will eat, drink, be merry and the craic will pass 90.

And we will toast the Teasy on her birthday, loud enough for them all to hear it up above, or down below.

Where they’ll either be jigging with St Peter or laying down the best beats with Beelzebub.

For best rates at the Parkview and the Grand Hotel Malahide and attractions mentioned here visit their sites.

And, of course, Ireland is served by Aer Lingus. Ryanair, all major airlines and ferries.

Countries, Ireland

Wednesday Addams in the Garden of Ireland

6th August 20256th August 2025 funtime65

It’s enough to put a smile on the face of any goth teenager… Wednesday Addams in the Garden of Ireland.

Whoever persuaded the world’s sassiest adolescent to exchange Creepy Towers for verdant Wicklow deserves a pay rise.

The second series of Wednesday, the Addams Family spin-off, drops on Netflix today.

And Wicklow film and TV fans, long used to seeing movie stars in their midst, have been spotting Jenna Ortega out and about.

At my old go-to afternoon out for tourist visitors, Powerscourt Demesne in Enniskerry.

Wednesday’s words

Wicked Wednesday: Jenna in Ireland. Cr. Jonathan Hession/Netflix © 2025

Jenna let her Wednesday mask slip when stopped and asked about her Wicklow getaway.

‘My favourite thing is just how kind the people were.’

While Daddy Gomez was equally effusive, saying: ‘The landscape here is sensational, so beautiful, so nostalgic.’

And to view them in character click here and here.

Now because we are always pleased to drive the whole of the country we should say that the Addams went on an all-Ireland adventure.

And took in Charleville Castle in County Offaly and Dublin’s atmospheric Deansgrange Cemetery.

Powerscourt’s power pals

They’re kooky: The Addams family. Cr. Helen Sloan/Netflix © 2025

Tourism Ireland’s behind the scenes films add to a panoply of great shoots in Ireland’s Hollywood.

For our old friends the Slazengers at Powerscourt they count these stellar visitors as friends.

Tom Cruise, Ryan O’Neal, Rock Hudson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sally Field and Anne Hathaway.

Ireland’s film industry centres around its movie studios in Ardmore near the county’s biggest town Bray.

And another Thing: Addams family fave. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

And like Jenna, Hollywood’s finest love the informality of the locals and just shooting the breeze in the seaside town.

With Britney Spears, no less, checking in to a tattoo parlour in the town on a flying visit.

While the great Sinead O’Connor made Bray hers and her children’s friends, including Daughterie, her home.

Another Hollywood in Wicklow

With all this pixie dust just an hour south of Dublin the good folk of Wickla have been quick to promote their Hollywood links.

Of course, it helps when you’ve got a ready-made village called Hollywood in the Wicklow foothills.

The story goes that in 1850 Wicklow native Matthew Guirke fled the Famine for America and named his homestead after his village.

While we’d never suggest you miss the opportunity to visit the American Hollywood the Irish version has one big advantage.

Across the water: Bandanaman at the Hollwyood sign

You will be allowed up to the letters without fear of a fine and being shouted down on a loudspeaker by LA cops.

A new pathway enables people to visit the upgraded aluminum sign in Wicklow for the first time.

And permits them to visit a site which they could only photographed previously.

Now we can’t vouch if our favourite Goth teen got her selfie there.

But we’d say Wednesday Addams in the Garden of Ireland was an adventure she’ll never forget.

Countries, Ireland

The year we said goodbye to an Irish rugby ledge

24th December 202424th December 2024 funtime65

Roysh, it was the year we said goodbye to an Irish rugby ledge, the great comic creation Ross ‘The Rossmeister’ O’Carroll-Kelly.

Ross’s alter ego, Paul Howard, surprised us all when he called full time on the pride of D4, Dublin’s rugby postcode.

Whose adventures we have been enjoying over a quarter of a century, 21 novels and three plays.

But as Paul/Ross consoles us with his last novel Don’t Look Back in Ongar we should celebrate our times together.

A Celtic Tiger cub

It began for this journalist in the knocking hours of the Celtic Tiger.

For an introduction to D4 where I would work for the next 13 years Ross would provide invaluable.

As a rugby jock in the heartland of Irish rugby and accidental social satirist.

Now many a time I would refer back to his How To Get By In South Dublin On, Like, €10,000 a day.

And familiarise myself with the lingo, the characters, politics, culture and places in liveried South Dublin.

And its opposite, the earthy, GAA-loving, gangster glorifying North side.

Bridge the generations

I’d have discovered them myself but here’s where I found Ross and where he still lingers.

Although Paul has sent him into the sunset no doubt on the cusp of leading Ireland to lift the Rugby World Cup.

The best place to find Ross is The Bridge.

Around the corner from my old paper The Irish Daily Mail in Embassy House.

And knew it and drank in it as Bellamy’s and continued to when Jamie Heaslip, Sean O’Brien and the Kearney brothers took it on.

The D4 drinking dens

Of course, Ross and his crew are well known around the hostelries of Ballsbridge.

The dearly-departed Kiely’s, Paddy Cullen’s Crowe’s and The Horse Show House.

Where I was a regular too, as I was at Ross’s fave bunk down.

The D4 instution that is The InterContinental, when Sorcha threw him out.

Wicklow ways

Few figures have done more to promote South Dublin and south Co. Wicklow or W4 as it is called.

And bear in mind that this is the land of Joyce, Yeats and Beckett.

So Bono’s Killiney & Dalkey gets a shout-out, Bob Geldof’s Dun Laoghaire.

And, of course, our old stomping ground of Greystones, the last stop on the line.

Which is where we’ve got to at the end of 2024 and a quarter-century of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.

The year we said goodbye to an Irish rugby ledge.

Countries, Ireland

Embrace the Hell of Christmas in Wicklow

10th December 202410th December 2024 funtime65

If you’re at end of your wick then here’s a solution… embrace the Hell of Christmas in Wicklow.

It’s in the Irish DNA, of course, to come at things from a different angle.

And so it is in our old haunting ground of Kilruddery House in Bray, Co. Wicklow, south of Dublin.

Where the estate is offering frazzled Christmas shoppers the Gift of Grit and Glory: Hell and Back.

Something bound to appeal to fans of I’m A Celebrity who fancy themselves the equal of any Bushtucker Trial.

Thrill seekers everywhere

This March, dare your family members to brave H&B Winter Warrior 2025.

Boasting frosty obstacles like Heartbreak Ridge, Valley of Pain and Satan’s Pit.

Participants can choose from a 21km Half Marathon, a 14km Double Lap or the 7km Social Lap.

But the fun doesn’t stop there.

Child’s Play

Drive you up the wall: But the kids will tackle it

H&B Junior Forest Frenzy for 8-12s takes place on Saturday, May 17.

Which are, of course, ideal for sports clubs, scout groups and school friends.

Hell and back

Making a splash: All part of the challenge

HELL & BACK 2025 EVENTS

1st March 2025 – H&B Winter Warrior
7KM / 14KM / 21KM – Ages 16+ (Accompanied by an adult)
17th May 2025 – H&B Junior Forest Frenzy
5KM – Exclusively for kids aged 8–12
(More Junior dates to be announced!)
7th June 2025 – H&B Adult, Teen & Family Events

Adult: 13KM / 8KM – Ages 16+
Family: 8KM – Ages 10+ with an adult
Teen: 8KM – Ages 12+

Countries, Ireland

Hell and back for a good Christmas gift

11th December 202311th December 2023 funtime65

It sounds like where you have to go to at this time of the year for the woman in your life… Hell and back for a good Christmas gift.

Of course I have got back over the years since the first Noel when I followed up on the hint she’s been dropping all year.

And bought her a non-stick frying pan, and not just that but also a tray of puddings and a half a dozen eggs.

The following year she got a spa.

A dirty job

Suited and booted: Ireland’s Fittest Family

Buying presents for your loved one at Christmas can be a dirty job but someone has got to do it.

Thankfully we’ve been offered some help from our pals in our old stomping ground, the Garden County of Ireland, County Wicklow.

Now Kilruddery in Bray, setting for many a film and TV series such as The Tudors.

And down the road from our Greystones patch it is a verdant idyll we know and love well.

It’s as familiar with the Irish for the mud it churns up for the popular RTE TV challenge Ireland’s Fittest Family.

If it and other battle with the elements endurance challenges are up your street.

Then you can book Hell & Back events throughout the year.

No loafing about

Hell & Back Winter (Ages 16+) – 8km/16km – Saturday 24^th February 24:

Set against the backdrop of the Little Sugar Loaf Mountain, organisers Alive Outside have a course set to test all your skills and stamina.

There’s the dreaded signature Hell & Back obstacles such as Hell on Earth, Tyre Zone, Heartbreak Ridge and Satan’s Pit. A

And the best bit? You can choose to join them on this muddy escapade or just watch and laugh from the sidelines!

Family misfortunes

Hell & Back Family – 8km– Saturday 8^th June 24:

Now anyone with kids will know that their sprogs like nothing better than seeing their parents in trouble.

And this family favourite will test your mettle as your family transforms into a team of daring hellraisers where you’ll deal with everything from mud pits to high walls.

Expect lots of laughter, hilarious wipeouts and moments of glory that will be talked about around the Christmas dinner table for years to come.

And more from the organisers

Gift vouchers available for Alive Outside Activity Centre, the home of Hell & Back.

Ireland’s Only Outdoor Escape Room, Laser Tag, Easter & Summer Kids Camps and many more activities available to book!

So, don’t be an oul’ stick in the mud…

Remember, you don’t have to go to Hell and back for a good Christmas gift.

Kilruddery is the golden ticket for a Crimbo gift.

Europe, Food, Food & Wine

Anyone can be a pasta master

24th October 202326th October 2023 funtime65

The Scary One would hardly trust me with an egg in the kitchen but let me tell you that celeb chef Catherine Fulvio proved her wrong and showed anyone can be a pasta master.

And so as we mark World Pasta Day tomorrow let me indulge you with my own culinary skills.

Catherine, of course, is celebrated across Ireland for her food, the secrets of which she is happy to pass on to foodie fans.

At her Ballyknocken House and Cookery School in my old stomping ground of Co. Wicklow.

Where Catherine taught a number of fingers and thumbs wannabe chefs how to make pasta.

Now there’s one pasta dish with which we’re all familiar.

And was certainly the exotic dish of my youth was the famous Bolognese.

As well as being the first grown-up dish my Mum (and no Italian she but the best cook of them all) taught me.

Your Spag Bolidays

And that is why we’re pinpointing our pasta pals at Topflight and their Bologna & Adriatic Riviera package.

You’ll get a two-night stay in the famous old university city.

Before relaxing and unwinding for seven nights in the beach resort of Cattolica.

Bologna is known as La Grassa in Italy, meaning the fat one on account of its love of food.

And after all that Spag Bol and vino you’ll be wanting to flop.

Cattolica lurch

Located just 14km south of busy Rimini, Cattolica provides a sheltered beach that is popular.

With watersport lovers and sun worshippers alike.

While there is also a wonderful seafront promenade for a stroll.

Now we’ll pass over, or pasta over if you like, that Imola has the best claim for recipe for a ragù served with pasta.

And that students’ go-to dish might have entered our lives as Spaghetti Imolese.

Topflight of fancy

Well, everyday is an education, as we found.

Under Catherine Fulvio’s tutelage when she taught me to make own.

And others that anyone can be a pasta master.

While Topflight and their excellent guides will teach you the rest about Il Bel Paese.

Topflight’s Bologna and Adriatic Riviera starts from €1,200pp.

Countries, Ireland, Music

Nothing compares to Bray

8th August 20238th August 2023 funtime65

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam Sinéad in your final resting place in Co. Wicklow… in her case nothing compares to Bray.

The Irish, and the world, say their final farewells to the pop powerhouse today in the seaside resort south of Dublin.

It is a town Sinéad O’Connor and our family had in common and one she shared with mine and yours.

Because first and foremost Sinéad was a mother and would welcome all the young people of Bray.

And neighbouring towns such as our old stomping ground over the Bray Head, Greystones, to her home.

And in the case of my own daughter it would be a full wrap-around cuddle.

Sinéad’s people

Sinéad loved the people of Bray where she lived for 15 years and they loved her back.

And despite her fame she got to live her life as any singer in a smalltown in Ireland would, celebrated for herself but never smothered.

It is poignant then that Sinéad’s final procession starts at the Harbour Bar, one of Bray’s great institutions.

With its warren of rooms, recreated Irish cottage living room among them with artefacts and curious cats.

Sinead will then head along the seafront, a lyrical backdrop for someone so ethereal.

Bray Seafront retains its olde resort feel with its shingle beach, promenade, amusement arcades and authentic bars and restaurants.

A modern addition to the charms which bring Dublin day trippers south SEA LIFE Bray Aquarium will occupy even the most active kiddies.

Head up to the fields

For the more active then continue your walk upwards and over Bray Head.

Stare downwards and you’ll see Bray and its front and your back and the Irish sea and its bird life all around.

While on occasion you might even see a lonely goat above you so yodelaye to your heart content.

The Southern Cross is the peak of your walk with its crucifix which reminds you of ancient Ireland’s connections with the land.

Mother Earth is there too in all its glory with Bray commemorating Sinead with lettering marked into the land.

A train runs through a tunnel built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel carrying passengers to the DART’s terminus.

Stones of destiny

Take a 45-minute trip from Dublin’s Tara Street station, near O’Connell Street.

And bookend your day trip with a Guinness at the Beach House in the newly repurposed harbour.

Mark too the murals on Bray Station commemorating those who have added to Bray and Irish life.

A space is open for the spiritual voice of Ireland.

So as we reflect on how all the flowers in your back yard died mama when you went away Sinead.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam Sinéad and nothing compares to Bray.

Countries, UK

Walk on for National Walking Month

3rd May 20233rd May 2023 funtime65

It’s on our doorstep and it’s free, so walk on for National Walking Month.

And you’ll almost certainly tred in the footsteps of some history makers and shapers.

Now once our doorstep was Greystones outside Bray Walk in Co. Wicklow and above the rail track built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

While in the other direction lies Kilcoole which saw its share of skirmishes during Oliver Cromwell’s invasion and in the 1798 Rebellion.

History, of course, is all around us, and the early morning call to arms and legs and hiking now involves passing one of Scotland’s great battlefields.

Pans history

Prestonpans in East Lothian was the first battle of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745.

When the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie saw off the troops of sitting king George.

And but for the crossroads of history there would now be a different Scottish king being crowned this weekend.

Although there are many who would say a plague on all their royal houses.

Which dynasty you supported, and would die for, and which religion was high up on the priority list of The Covenanters nearly 100 years before.

Hills and thrills

And you’ll see their sacrifice for yourself above the Flotterstone Inn in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh on the Covenanters Walk.

A bit of background here, the Covenanters were a movement of radical Protestants who did not like the direction the kings of the time were following and signed up to challenge that in the Covenant in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh.

Of course, they did their fighting in the pulpit and places like the Pentlands, up in the hills.

Making a Covenant with nature

Where one John Carphin fought at Rullion Green, Collinton, was wounded and sheltered in a former shepherd’s cottage at nearby Blackhill.

Shepherd Adam Sanderson carried his body to Black Hill at NT 0789 5219 for your map fans.

There the distant hill of Cairn Table, a little south of Muirkirk, is visible, and most importantly that meant the Ayrshire Hills, his home county.

And here was you thinking that a walk in the hills was just a way of getting exercise and getting out from your Scary One’s feet.

Well, it’s not, so we’ll be getting a walk on for National Walking Month.

Yes, we’ll get back to doing the pilgrimages we love, on the Camino and the Francigena and also in the Pyrenees, Tenerife and Tirol and the Swiss Alps.

But also on our doorstep, the John Muir Way, the Pentlands, and when in Ireland in our beloved Dublin Mountains and Wicklow Way.

MEET YOU ON THE HILLS

Countries

Everyone’s for tennis

25th February 202325th February 2023 funtime65

It’s the hottest ticket in town at the start of the English summer when it’s everyone for tennis.

And although you might not associate the Irish with the All-England Club the same might have been said for the Scots before Andy and Jamie Murray started sweeping up and Judy extended her sideboard.

But back in the Ninenties (OK the 1990s) the Irish ruled the hallowed turf of London SW19.

Green, set and match

With Willoughby Hamilton from Kildare winning the men’s singles in 1890, Bray’s Joshua Pim from my old stomping ground of Wicklow winning in 1893 and 1894 and Kerry‘s Harold Mahony taking the title in 1896.

While Tipperary‘s Lena Rice was Ladies’ champion in 1890 and Pim and the Dubliner Frank Stoker picking up the men’s doubles title taht year too.

Now we can’t promise Irish tennis fans will see the shamrock around. either the pot with the pineapple or the plate.

But we can vouch for a smashing offer flagged up by our friends at the Irish Travel Agents Association.

Prowse about that

Travel agent Keith Prowse is offering a hospitality with hotel and hospitality packages available throughout the Wimbledon fortnight.

With a choice of Centre Court or No.1 Court tickets.

Just the ticket and you’ll be seated just yards from your tennis heroes.

Packages available throughout the tournament include accommodation and a day at The Championships on Centre Court or Court No.1.

With Hospitality in The Treehouse Hospitality area or The Lawn.

The tennis tour

Serene: Serena Williams, queen of the Centre Court

The Wimbledon Tour packages includes:

Return flight from Belfast, Cork, Dublin or Shannon to London
One-night in 4*hotel Wellington Hotel or 5* Tower Suites with breakfast
London underground travelcard for the day you attend Wimbledon
Shuttle bus transfers from Southfields Underground Station to your hospitality area, traffic depending
An official reserved seat at the Championships on Centre Court or No.1 Court
Hospitality in The Lawn or Rosewater Pavilion

Yes, everyone’s for tennis and Keith Prowse will ensure there are plenty of Irish Oles…

And Guinness alongside the Pimms on Murray Mound and Henman Hill.