Ireland’s Tracks and Trails

Ireland’s Tracks and Trails Discover Ireland’s breathtaking landscape on the most spectacular tracks and trails in the country

09/09/2026

“The sc***um tightening sea” 🥶
In the famous opening scene of Ulysses, Buck Mulligan and Stephen Daedalus are at the Martello Tower in Sandycove and look out over Dublin Bay. “The sc***um tightening sea” is Buck’s description of the water in front of them.
What do you think? Is it an apt description of the Irish Sea?

If you want to see more of this conversation, you can catch the full episode tomorrow night on RTEOne at 8:30pm or anytime on the RTE Player or on our YouTube channel at IrelandsTracksandTrails

03/09/2026

Her father didn’t want opera, he just wanted Danny Boy ☘️
Celine Byrne, one of Ireland’s greatest sopranos, told us about her late father and the song he always asked for. A bit of Danny Boy❤️
And that’s what she gave him.
Thanks Celine
Kildare Sports Partnership
You can see this episode tonight on RTE One at 8:30pm or if outside Ireland you can watch on our YouTube channel.

20/08/2026

For so long trees were how the Irish made sense of the world 🌳
Before the Irish language, the people of this island navigated their daily lives through their relationship with trees. That relationship was so fundamental it shaped the very first alphabet ever written here.

Walking through the beautiful trees at Mosstown Estate in County Longford, Doireann and Sinead Hussey share a piece of Irish history that most of us were never taught in school.

This episode is on RTÉ One again tonight at 8:30pm. For international viewers it's available on our YouTube channel, link in bio.

21/07/2026

There is a statue of an Irish hero standing in Dún Laoghaire looking out to sea. His name is Roger Casement and if you don't know his story, you should.

Born in Sandycove, Casement became a British diplomat who exposed colonial slavery in the Congo and torture in Peru. The British knighted him for it. But what he witnessed changed him completely. He joined the Irish republican movement, went to Germany to try to secure arms for the Easter Rising, and returned to Ireland by German submarine in April 1916, coming ashore at Banna Strand in County Kerry.

He was arrested immediately, tried for high treason at the Old Bailey in London and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 3rd August 1916. He was 51 years old.

When they took him to London to stand trial, Dún Laoghaire harbour was the last thing he ever saw of Ireland. The statue looks out to sea. Toward the direction they took him.

Professor Luke O'Neill tells Doireann his full story on the Tracks & Trails Dún Laoghaire episode. Watch it on our YouTube channel now, link below.

https://youtu.be/B9YI9l3p6LQ?si=31DRS7I_Gb5C58-C

06/07/2026

"It was like you were being lifted up and carried on a cloud."

Frances Black on the cliffs of Rathlin Island, talking about what it feels like to sing with her family.

The Black family are one of Ireland's greatest musical families. And it's the moments of singing together that Frances says she treasures most. It was simply a song called 'The Plough Boy Lads', her voice carrying a verse, and then her family coming in on the chorus in harmony. Some things are impossible to describe but we think she did a pretty great job of it.

Watch the full Rathlin Island episode on our YouTube channel here https://youtu.be/dZBD9McfH_g?is=9JI0hInV5Tgd2Hq2

29/06/2026

This is where the Strokestown Famine emigrants took their last look at their land, their home, their world before boarding ships that nearly half of them would never survive.
1,490 people walked through this gate at Strokestown Park. They turned right at the square. They headed for Dublin. And they never came back.

Myles Dungan and Doireann walked the same path. Sometimes a place holds its grief in the ground beneath your feet.

Watch the full episode on RTÉ player or our YouTube channel

VisitRoscommon Strokestown Park

16/06/2026

The Deserted Village on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth sits high on the slopes of Mount Barnavave, looking out over Carlingford Lough. The wider settlement of seven or eight houses is thought to be connected to the Famine. But when archaeologist Paul Gosling took a closer look at one of the best preserved houses here, the story was quite different.

Two rooms. A dividing wall. Fireplaces in each gable. The doorway between the rooms deliberately blocked. And a roof that wasn’t lost to time or neglect; it was removed on purpose after the Second World War to avoid paying tax.

“This is why you have such a perfect ruin.”

History is rarely as simple as the story we tell about it. Filmed on location for Tracks & Trails, County Louth.

19/05/2026

You could tell nationalist households in Northern Ireland by which direction their TV antenna was pointing.

During the Troubles, the Clermont Mast on the Louth/Armagh border became politically controversial. When RTÉ built it, its signal reached deep into Northern Ireland, seen by some as a deliberate attempt to push southern culture and republican ideals across the border. Many nationalist households pointed their antennas south to catch it.

A television mast. A political statement. A border story that most people have never heard.

Anton Savage tells Doireann this remarkable piece of Irish history while standing at the Clermont Mast in County Louth where British Army outposts once lined the hills and helicopters filled the sky. Today there’s nothing but the natural landscape.

“It’s something we shouldn’t take for granted.”

Did you see the full Louth episode? You can watch it now on the RTE Player or if you’re outside of Ireland watch it on our YouTube channel, link in bio.

08/05/2026

She spent 16 years of her life painting a room that almost no one would ever see.
Sister Concepta Lynch painted every inch of the Oratory of the Sacred Heart in Dún Laoghaire by hand, using nothing but domestic house paint over sixteen years.

Celtic birds, beasts and intricate designs cover every surface, alongside stained glass windows by Harry Clarke.

Sister Lynch died in 1939 and a protective structure was built around the oratory to preserve her life’s work forever.

It is one of Ireland’s great hidden works of art as very few people know it’s there.

Tonight in the Series finale of Tracks and Trails, Doireann visits this extraordinary place before joining Professor Luke O’Neill and Maia Dunphy for the rest of the episode.

Watch it in full tonight on at 8:30pm; also available on . If you’re outside of Ireland you can catch it on YouTube, link in bio.

07/05/2026

Walking the Dublin Mountains Way on a sunny day ☀️

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council DLR Tourism

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