Sandy beaches interspersed with bracing headlands sweep down Wicklow’s coast from Bray to Arklow. Inland the modest Wicklow Mountains are wilder than the stranger first imagines. The Wicklow Way, 82 miles long, tracks through the county’s heart south on the old Pilgrim’s route to Glendalough. In the Vale of Avoca, is Thomas Moore’s Meeting of the Waters. Beyond, over the mountains, lie stately home after stately home.

Bray. No 1 Martello Terrace, in this Dubliner’s resort with its esplanade, its sand and shingle beach below the promontory of 791ft Bray Head, was once James Joyce’s home and features in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Now it is a family home and private. Other memories of old Bray are to be found in the Heritage Centre in the onetime Town Hall. There is the mesmeric National Aquarium. Dargle Glen Gardens, inland, a riot of exotic shrub and tree.

Kilruddery House. Open afternoons, May, June September
Tel: (01) 2863405. On the road to Greystones, itself another Edwardian charm and haven for yacht clubs, is the 1820 Tudor Revival Kilruddery House, a re-modelling of the 1650 original. The house’s formal gardens date back over 300 years; statuary, hedged walks, parterres, ponds and twin 500ft canals attest to its long history. Sugar Loaf Mountain decorates the view from the gardens.

Powerscourt Garden & House Exhibition. Tel: (01) 2046000. One of the World's Great Gardens, Powerscourt is situated 12 miles south of Dublin in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. The garden was begun by Richard Wingfield in the 1740's and stretches out over 45 acres and is a sublime blend of formal gardens, sweeping terraces, statuary and ornamental lakes together with secret hollows, rambling walks and walled gardens.