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A Tour from Dublin to Cork
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This day tour connects Dublin and Cork through the Irish midlands, stopping at three of the country’s most striking historical sites along the way. It can run in either direction - starting from your hotel or collection point in Dublin or Cork.
Your first stop is the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb in County Carlow, a 2,500-year-old megalithic structure weighing around 150 metric tonnes - the largest portal tomb in existence. From there, you head into Kilkenny, where 12th-century Kilkenny Castle stands on the River Nore. The city’s side streets date back centuries, and you’ll also visit St. Canice’s Cathedral and its impressive round tower.
The final stop is the Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland’s most recognisable landmarks. Dating back to the 5th century, this was where the High Kings of Ireland once met and ruled. The 13th-century church on the rock is still standing.
At Kilkenny, the stop is worth slowing down for. The tour visits the castle and St Canice’s Cathedral, but what makes Kilkenny is the kilometre and a half between them - the Medieval Mile, as it’s called, running through slip-lanes and limestone alleyways past the Tholsel, Rothe House, and the Black Abbey. Climb the round tower at St Canice’s Cathedral if you have the energy: it’s 100 steps, 9th-century, and gives you the whole town laid out underneath. The Smithwick’s brewery site on Parliament Street, where the family brewed for nearly three hundred years from 1710, is also on the route.
The Rock of Cashel rewards arriving early in the morning or staying into the evening. The OPW opens at 9am; the coach parties tend to arrive around midday. The Rock is not large - four coaches arriving at once and the experience degrades. Walk up from the town car park rather than driving to the base: the approach on foot, watching the walls rise above you, is part of how the site works. Allow time for Cormac’s Chapel - consecrated in 1134, with the only surviving Romanesque frescoes in Ireland, discovered under centuries of limewash in the 1980s. The roofless Gothic cathedral and 28-metre round tower are outside; Cormac’s Chapel is the thing.
Below the Rock, Hore Abbey sits free in a field. The last Cistercian monastery founded in Ireland (1272), it’s a ten-minute walk from the car park with direct sight-lines back up to the Rock. No ticket, no café, no signage - just the ruins. The morning light on both sites together is worth the early start.
Lunch at Café Hans on Moor Lane is the move if the timing works - no reservations, queues at peak times, but the food (soups, open sandwiches, daily specials) is genuinely good. Its sister restaurant Chez Hans next door has been a Tipperary institution since 1968, but needs advance booking for dinner.
The portal tomb stop is in Carlow - and it is worth a moment’s pause. Browne’s Hill Dolmen sits three kilometres east of Carlow town, a granite capstone of up to 150 tonnes resting on its uprights. You park, walk a field, and that’s the visit - no ticket, no visitor centre, no commentary needed. The capstone is one of the largest in Europe and the scale doesn’t read from a photograph. The town of Carlow is worth knowing about if you’re continuing the route: the Barrow towpath south from the town is one of the flattest, quietest river walks in the country.