Things to Do in County Waterford

More about County Waterford

Where to base yourself

Two towns do most of the work. Waterford city suits anyone who wants museums, restaurants and a base for the eastern half of the county, with the old quays and the Viking Triangle walkable from most hotels and the Greenway starting on the edge of town. Dungarvan at the other end is the better holiday base — a harbour town with a castle in the middle of it, good food for its size, and the Greenway, the Copper Coast and the Comeraghs all within twenty minutes. It fills for the Waterford Festival of Food in April and for August generally.

For a beach holiday, Tramore has the five-kilometre strand, the amusements and the largest stock of self-catering, and Ardmore is the quieter, prettier version at the Cork end, small enough that its handful of places book out months ahead in July and August. Dunmore East is a working fishing harbour with thatched cottages and a few good rooms. Inland, Lismore is the base for the Blackwater valley, and Ballymacarbry in the Nire Valley is walkers’ country — farmhouse B&Bs, drying rooms, and the Comeragh trailheads up the road.

The Greenway

The 46 km rail trail is flat, sealed and free, and it is the single best day you can have here. Most people ride Dungarvan to Kilmacthomas and back, which gets you the big viaduct and the workhouse-turned-café at the halfway point, or the full run one way with a shuttle bus back. From the city end you pass Kilmeaden, where the narrow-gauge Suir Valley Railway runs alongside the river in season and works well with small children who will not cycle far.

Bike hire operates from both ends and from Kilmacthomas; on summer weekends and bank holidays it genuinely runs out, so book. Allow three to four hours for the full length at an easy pace, longer with stops. Mount Congreve is close to the Kilmeaden end — seventy acres of woodland garden and a walled garden, ticketed, and at its best from late April into June when the rhododendrons and azaleas are over.

The coast

West of Tramore the Copper Coast is a geopark rather than a resort strip: cliffs, coves and 19th-century mine workings strung along the R675. Bunmahon is the main beach and the geopark centre, the Tankardstown engine houses above it are the most photogenic of the mine ruins, and Stage Cove has columnar rhyolite in the cliffs. Swimming here needs care — several coves have no lifeguard and the currents deserve respect.

East of the city, Passage East runs a car ferry across to Ballyhack in Wexford that saves an hour’s driving and takes about five minutes, and Woodstown has a long sheltered strand on the site of a Viking longphort. Counsellors’ Strand at Dunmore East is the sheltered swimming beach. In the far west, the Ardmore cliff walk is a five-kilometre loop past a holy well, a coastguard station and the rusting hulk of the Samson, grounded on the rocks in 1987 and still there; Goat Island nearby is a small beach reached by a steep path.

The Comeraghs

The mountains are compact, and the walks are better than the height suggests. Coumshingaun Lough is the one to do: a corrie lake under a horseshoe of 300-metre cliffs, about two hours return on a rough path from the car park on the R676. The full horseshoe ridge above it is a different proposition — steep, exposed and not for a first hillwalk. Mahon Falls is the easy option, twenty minutes each way from the car park above Mahon Bridge, and worth timing for after heavy rain, when it actually runs.

The Nire Valley on the western side has the waymarked loops, including the Coumduala and Lough Mohra routes, and the Monavullagh ridge to the south is the emptier continuation of the range. Cloud comes down fast up here and the tracks are boggy after rain, so bring more than trainers.

The Blackwater valley

Lismore is the handsome town of the county. The castle is a private Devonshire house, but its gardens open seasonally and hold contemporary art alongside the yew walk, and St Carthage’s Cathedral is free to walk into. Just outside town, the Ballysaggartmore Towers are a pair of extravagant Gothic gate lodges leading to a house that was never built — a short, free woodland walk and the county’s best folly story.

Downriver, Cappoquin sits on the bend where the Blackwater turns south, with Mount Melleray Abbey on the slope above and Dromana House and its Hindu-Gothic gate further on. Tallow is the last town before Cork. North of Cappoquin the road climbs to the Vee Pass through the Knockmealdowns, best in late May when the rhododendron is out.

Indoors in the city

Waterford Treasures is three separate museums on the Viking Triangle sharing a combined ticket: Reginald’s Tower for the Viking material, the Bishop’s Palace for Georgian Waterford, and the medieval museum built over two surviving chambers. The Waterford Crystal tour on the Mall takes you along the blowing and cutting benches with the makers working; it books out on cruise-ship days. If you only have an hour, the ruined French Church is a two-minute walk away and free.