A fishing village on a rocky headland at the end of the DART line, with a cliff path, seals in the harbour and the best fish in Dublin. Thirty minutes from the city.
Why it works
Thirty minutes on a suburban train and you are on a rocky peninsula with cliffs, heather, a working fishing harbour and a view back across the bay to the city and the Wicklow mountains. It is the easiest good day out from Dublin and it costs the price of a train ticket.
The village is on the north side of the head, around a harbour built in the 1800s as the mail packet station for Dublin — a role it lost to Dún Laoghaire when it silted up.
The cliff walk
The reason to come. A network of looped paths runs around the head, colour-coded from the DART station:
The green loop, about 6km, is the shortest and stays low.
The purple loop, about 6km, goes up over the summit and back.
The red loop at roughly 8km is the full circuit of the head via the Bailey lighthouse, and it is the one to do — cliffs on one side, gorse and heather on the other, gannets and fulmars below, and on a clear day the Mourne Mountains to the north and Wales occasionally to the east.
Two to three hours for the red loop. It is well signposted, it is not technical, and it is genuinely exposed in places — the coastal path has had erosion closures and the sections above the cliffs are not for small children running ahead.
Proper shoes. It is muddy for most of the year.
The harbour
Seals hang around the pier waiting for fish scraps from the boats, and they are a fixture rather than a chance sighting. Do not feed them, whatever everyone else is doing.
The West Pier has the fish shops and the smokehouse. Beshoff’s and Nicky’s Plaice are the ones people queue at.
Ireland’s Eye, the small uninhabited island offshore, has a Martello tower, a ruined church and a large seabird colony. Boats run across from the East Pier in summer, weather permitting, and it is about fifteen minutes.
Eating
This is a serious seafood village and it is the other reason people come. The restaurants along the West Pier and up the hill do chowder, crab and whatever came in that morning. It is not cheap on a Sunday.
The Summit Inn at the top of the hill for a pint with a view.
The other direction
Dún Laoghaire, south on the DART, is the alternative: two Victorian piers to walk, the James Joyce Tower at Sandycove where Ulysses opens, and the Forty Foot, a sea-bathing spot where Dubliners swim year-round including Christmas morning.
Malahide, one stop beyond Howth junction, has a castle and gardens.
