What a beautiful place. The atmosphere is amazing and the food is mouthwatering…read more I enjoyed our evening so much, it was worth going and I would love to have a party there.

The favorite spot in our Irish holiday. Dinner was amazing. We stayed here for two nights and plan…read moreon returning here on our next visit. We don't golf but took a wonderful walk and enjoyed the scenic views. The service was impecible. It was a lovely place to stay and it's only a few minutes away from the Waterford city centre. I also life that its on its own private island.

Victor's way sculpture park is worth the small fee and worth the stop. Some of the exhibits are…read moredark ... like zombies ect and some are Indian . Either way found it interesting. Plus I enjoyed walking in the woods and hearing the birds I wish I could have spent more time and did more photography with the nature and birds also. This was our first day in Ireland and we had a long way to go to get to Cork where we were staying the night. But I'm glad we stopped by here and if you are interested in sculpture I hope you have the time to give it a look.

Magic. This place…read moreis a true gem. The Indian Sculpture Park, or Victoria's Way, is a 22 acre park that includes small lakes, forested areas, a "philosophy maze" of messages on wooden signposts, and of course, a large collection of fabulous granite and bronze sculptures. The sculptures range in size from 5ft to 15ft tall. The sculptures are a beautiful fusion of Indian spiritual beliefs, philosophical concepts, humour and playfulness, and amazing craftsmanship. I was genuinely blown away and moved by the whole experience of being in this wonderful place. Victor Langheld, the owner and curator, advises that the park is ideally visited at the age of 28 (or over!). Take from that what you will :) I don't want to say too much more about this park as I feel it is something to be experienced, not just to be read about. One of the most extraordinary places I have ever come across.

Bray Summer Festival, otherwise known as Brayfest, brings entertainment and fun with it every year…read more The 'fest' runs for six weeks in July and August and offers air displays, live music on Bray's bandstand, garden parties and performances in Bray's 'Kilruddery House', children's entertainment, street performances and markets. Many Bray businesses, from pubs and restaurants to the Mermaid Arts Centre, get involved and, forgive the cliché, but there is usually something for everyone. The annual fireworks display takes place down on Bray Promenade after an evening of music on the bandstand. A funfair, including big wheel, has already set up camp on Bray's seafront and I have already attended a mini-Italian festival complete with food, music and wine. This year the organisers have dispensed with the annual 'lovely girls' competition, 'Face of Bray, but fear not lads, it's set to return next year! Programmes are available from the website.

Bray is a seaside town, just a few miles south of Dublin…read more It is mainly Victorian, with beautiful Victorian houses in the most part. One of the holds a lot of history for my daughter. There is a lovely esplanade which goes on for several miles with a simple barred fence to stop you falling into the very choppy Irish sea. You can see as far north as Howth, and south as far as Bray Head, which is a challenging walk up the hill, after the end of the esplanade. On the other side of the Esplanade is a well kept park, with flower borders, a bandstand and bowling green. The look is again quite Victorian, and there is something very nearly English about all this. At the northern end of the esplanade is a fine pub, where they are very welcoming and all your relatives will buy you a drink. Not many non Irish know of Bray, but Dubliners are usually fond of it.

I discovered Mount Usher Gardens on the drive home from wicklow with my mam a few weeks before…read morechristmas. It is in one word, breathtaking. There is an Avoca Handweavers restaurant and a small bakery and health store on the grounds. But the rest is beautiful gardens which you can just walk around, and you completly loose track of time. They are the most beautiful gardens i have ever seen, and its lovely then to go into the restaurant and have a cup of coffee and a cake in a nice, relaxed, country-style environment. This is my favorite place to be, and if you are ever looking for somewhere nice to walk, and relax, i definitely 100% reccommend this place! :)

Fun and cozy place with so many different spaces; there's bound to be a vibe for everyone. We…read morehaven't been when there's music or tried the food, but a fun and friendly place for a Guinness.

Pub located in Bray that caters to locals and tourists alike…read more A very eclectic vibe with lots of kitschy decor. Good pub food. Had the best toastie ever. It was a proper pub-style toastie. Proper pours of Guinness. Nothing fancy just a straight up neighborhood pub. Comfortable and welcoming. Service is grand. It's like chatting it up with a lifelong friend.

The whole village really! This is where they filmed Ballykissangel,…read moreand where, coincidentally, an uncle in law was a parish priest. The village is charming, with a river running through it, and the bridge is worthy of being a good view point. Interestingly, they reversed the village layout in fiming. Up the hill is the church and cottages cpme down the hill, with bakeries and souvenir shops interspersed. The pub is near the bottom of the hill and serves good Irish brews, and, importantly, bacardy. You could drive through a=Avoca and barely notice, but you'd miss out on some real rural life. Sorrounded by woods and loughs, the nearest towns are about an hour away. The Post Office was the general store in the series.

Our first meal in Ireland after arriving fresh off the plane at Dublin. Driving on the left side…read moreof the road for the first hour we were in Ireland was disorienting and stressful enough. All rental cars are manual transmission unless you are willing to pay an extra $400, so our first bouts with driving left us stalled on hills and shimmying into ditches on a tight 2 lane highway when a car was approaching from the opposite direction. What an adventure, when we arrived in Arklow what we needed was a great meal. Arklow is a small and quaint town with maybe 1,000 people living in it, and during daylight hours you will not see a soul walking downtown. Looking at all the pubs on the strip, I began to question if I was in The Truman Show and these food items were for display only. When we walked into Darcy's, there was maybe 4 people in the joint, we double-checked to see if it was open. The first item of business was ordering a pint of Guinness. Touristy? Sure, but I'd rather have a Guinness mustache than a milk mustache anyday. The waitress handed us our menu and it was typical Irish pub food that you would get in the states, but with the addition of panini's and pasta. The casserole with Guinness was sold out so I opted for the lasagna based on a waitress recommendation. We also ordered another pasta dish, the roast beef, and a panini. All were great and tasted as you would expect from an Irish pub, which means warm and hearty. My lasagna had a layer of cheese on top that was maybe an inch thick. It might have been cheddar and it was overdone, but it was quite cracking. They paired lasagna with french fries, which would be a no-no in the states where we typically include a salad or soup with pasta. If you are in Arklow I'd recommend stopping by.

Arklow is a small enough town, where during the day you hardly see anyone! None of the cafes are…read moreever that packed and the shops seem to just tick over without anything really interesting happen. The sun goes down and all of a sudden everyone seems to just appear! A popular spot would be the likes of Sally O'Briens, also on the main street, where the moment 10pm hits suddenly becomes packed! Anyone who's read any of my previous reviews will know that I'm not mad on places where you have to enter mosh-pit conditions just to get a drink and can hardly have a conversation over the sheer noise of everyone around you. This is why when I discovered Darcy McGee's I was so happy!!! Tucked away just off the main street, you'd miss it if you weren't looking for it. The locals I've met claimed that it's "expensive" but in reality, the difference in price is only by about 10 or 20 cent on average. I know there's a recession going on but you shouldn't blacklist a place for being expensive unless they're asking for you to re-mortgage your house every time you want a beer. Anyway, that evening I had gone to dinner with my girlfriend and we fancied having a quick drink before heading home. I mentioned Darcy McGee's to her and that I'd love to just have a drink there to check it out. So, Eh... We went to Darcy McGee's... For starters, walking into the place you feel like you're entering some sort of secret club. The décor is very cosy, the seats comfortable and most of all, it was spotless! Seriously, I've always noticed that while the majority of pubs are clean there's a sort of untidiness about them. This place was clean, tidy and very well presented. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable. [side note] I don't know about you guys, but it really bugs me when you go to a pub and the staff give you a "Hot Fuzz" response when you ask them what wine they sell... "We've got red... Or... White!" [/side note] We ordered a bottle of wine and it was cheaper than we expected, circling around the €15 mark. We headed out to the smoking area and enjoyed an evening engaging in the time-old Irish pastime of getting slightly less sober while solving the world's problems without actually doing anything about it. Wow, this is a long review... I love this place. I love the atmosphere, the friendly staff, the comfy chairs, the excellent smoking area etc. etc. etc. If you're in Arklow any time soon, go here!

I finally made it here for the first time. Had meant to come for years. And I almost didn't go as…read morethe weather forecast was horrendous. But luckily I don't care about forecasts! Ok, we were extremely lucky. It rained while driving down and after exploring the gardens for 2 1/2 hours it really rained heavily. But we got to enjoy the gardens dry and even in sunshine. Probably not everybody walks around for that long as they are not that big. But with lots of little paths and beautiful and unusual trees and plants - so loads to see. And I had my camera with me so that always takes longer anyhow. The ticket is valid for the day. So you can even go out of the gardens, have a coffee, cake or lunch and go back in to explore more and in the ever changing Irish light it will be different all the time. Yes, €7.50 is quite expensive and maybe that was one of the reasons I haven't been yet. But I'd say it takes a lot of work to look after the gardens so I plan already to go back in spring despite the price. Especially when the Azalea are in blossom. The Azalea Walk must be incredible.

We visited Mount Usher Gardens last Sunday morning with some of the kids and we all had a really…read moregreat time. While I have come to appreciate beautiful gardens and views over the years, I was quite surprised at how much the kids enjoyed the walk through the gardens, along the riverbank, through the wildflower meadows, around the rare trees and shrubs and across the suspended walk-bridges. It cost about EU 25 for the 5 of us, and we got a couple of hours of real enjoyment from this. Over the next few months the trees and shrubs will bloom at different times and I expect to visit again to see the colours change. We finished up with lunch in the Avoca restaurant in the gardens. The restaurant is excellent, as all Avoca's seem to be. Great food and excellent service. Next time I visit Mount Usher, I will book a table in the restaurant before I start the tour of the gardens so that I can avoid queing for a table when I'm ready for lunch. The only snag was the very limited parking.