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The Disillusioned Dubliner isn’t usually one for giving romantic advice, but here’s a pearl of wisdom for all you lonely hearts out there: Get yourself a lover from somewhere else.

Katie Lincoln comes from a small fishing village (I know every village says that, but you can take my word for it, people fish there) called Ardmore on the south coast of County Waterford, not far from the Cork border. It’s not a place that features in most travel books. In fact the Fodor’s Ireland book I co-write actually excluded it all together - a fact I’m about to remedy. But as far as the DD is concerned Ardmore is a little gem.

West Gable of St Declan’s Cathedral, Ardmore

The DD looks three key things about any ‘tourist’ (why am I so reluctant to be associated with that word? It’s not a disease?) place he visits.

1. Openness: I like places that you can roam around at your leisure that allow unmonitored access to their sights.
2. Freeness: I don’t like the idea of paying for something that is either a natural or a public treasure. Or maybe I just don’t like to pay for anything.
3. Emptiness. I like a place that’s not too busy. I might be a ‘tourist’ but I don’t need to be bumping into too many more of the damned critters.
4. Guinness: There better be a good place to get a pint.

Ardmore is four for four.

Declan to Kevin: I was here first

Glendalough, the 6th century monastic settlement in the Wicklow Mountains, is one of the most popular visitor attractions in Ireland. They have a visitor centre (with a small charge) and lines of eager pilgrims waiting to see the sights.

One hundred years before Saint Kevin first had his notion to run off to the wilds of Glendalough, the intrepid Saint Declan established the oldest Christian settlement in Ireland in - you’ve guessed it - Ardmore, where he lived in the period 350-450 AD (yes, he even beat Saint Patrick to the punch). I can safely say very few Irish people know this fact, and so the pilgrims are shockingly few that visit such wonders as Declan’s original Holy Well; the 8th-century Oratory located in the ancient graveyard; the beautifully proportioned 12th-century round tower; and, most spectacular of all, the mysterious, entrancing carved figures on the west gable of St. Declan’s Cathedral.

All these wonders and not a visitor centre or ticket booth in sight. You are free to wander as you please (you are expected to show due respect to the sights, of course) and absorb the very first glimmers of Christianity in Celtic Ireland.

The Disillusioned Dubliner & Moll head to Goat Island, Ardmore

But if Ardmore was just an early Christian Disneyland minus the security, DD wouldn’t be getting so excited about the place. It is also set in one of the most physically impressive parts of the country.

Located on a beach itself, a horde of better, emptier, sandy beaches are located nearby, with the best of them being the secluded and beautifully named Goat Island (not an island and not a goat in sight). The short walks to these beaches along the small country roads and paths set you up nicely for a brisk (translate ‘brisk’ as ‘freezing cold’) but wonderfully exhilarating dip in the Irish Sea.

Alternatively the wonderful Cliff Walk around the back of the town takes you along some seriously sheer cliffs (great for spotting birds and seals and even a few rumoured whales) with amazing views out back across the bay. Katie Lincoln’s mother informed me she was walking this path late one summers night - it was actually midsummer’s night - when she heard a strange beating noise in a field nearby. She went over and what she saw was a badger and her cubs playing some kind of running and jumping game. She spent 20 minutes watching them before heading on your way. Just in case this doesn’t impress you, badgers are notoriously shy and a sighting is a rare threat. Grandmother Lincoln, who has lived in the area all her long life, emphasized the fact by letting me know she had never managed to see a badger in the flesh.

Ireland on the cheap, with fiddling farmers

Reilly’s: One of the great bars

The local beach do bring summer time holiday makers from nearby Cork and you’ll see their neat little caravans parked in camp site not far from town.

But the DD - who was raised on two-week caravan holidays himself - finds something refreshing and warm about these good value, do-it-yourself holiday makers refusing to be trapped by the monster that is ‘Rip-Off’ Ireland.

That’s another positive about Ardmore, you can do it on the cheap.

And then there is Reilly’s. It only opens two nights a week - the owner just couldn’t be arsed bothering the other five - but it still has to be one of the finest pubs in… well anywhere. On Tuesdays its ‘Fiddling Farmers’ when locals from the town and surrounding countryside come along and sing a song, recite a poem, play a tune or whatever.

Card players in Reilly’s

The same men (and an occasional woman) have been coming for years and I’m told they always sing the same song. If you decide to go along a try your luck just be careful you not stepping on any toes by stealing another man’s anthem.

On Fridays it’s cards night. The game is Forty Five and you won’t be asked to play as the same bunch of farmers and locals have played the game for years ( I suppose a funeral or two must usher in some new blood?).

But just sit down with on of the top class pints of Guinness, pass a little time admiring the wild collection of radical political posters and pamphlets that adorn the walls, and watch these skilled and wily card sharks as they try to destroy each other without once dropping the smile from their face. And great faces they are, full of expression and smarts and worth watching for the dramatic changes as the fortune of the cards rises and falls.

Anto? He’s so totally D4

Here’s a warning, bring your thick skin. The owner, Michael Reilly, has a sharp tongue on him and he just might turn it on you with a searing question or two. Keep your politics to yourself unless you enjoy a good old fashioned disagreement - on second thoughts speak freely and enjoy the fun. He gave the DD one look (remember I’m an outsider going out with a local girl) and muttered the word ‘Gonzaga’ under his breath. Gonzaga is a very posh and expensive boarding school where the privileged of Dublin send their kids. I was half flattered, half enraged that he could possibly mistake my working-class, Northside roots for some spoilt, Dublin 4 brat. I must be doing my hair wrong?

The town also happens to the be the starting point for St. Declan’s Way, a long distance (three days in total but you can do a short section of it) pilgrim’s walk that ends up at the majestic Rock of Cashel.

And that’s Ardmore. Try keep it to youself.

–Anto Howard

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s things to do in Ireland, Dublin tours, and day tours to Glendalough and Wicklow.