Things to Do in Wicklow: Gardens, Mountains and a Monastic Valley

County Wicklow gets called the "Garden of Ireland," and between its formal estate gardens, its granite uplands and its coastline, it earns the name from more than one direction. Most visitors come for Glendalough — see our full Glendalough guide for that — but it's a small fraction of what's actually here.

Powerscourt Estate and Waterfall

A large 18th-century estate near Enniskerry, its terraced gardens looking out toward the Sugar Loaf mountain. The waterfall itself is a separate site a short drive away, on the River Dargle — a single, dramatic drop that the estate markets as Ireland's highest at 121 metres, though a handful of remote waterfalls elsewhere in the country are taller; either way, it's one of the tallest waterfalls in the country and among the most accessible. Check powerscourt.com for current opening times and tickets, since the house, gardens and waterfall are ticketed separately.

Mount Usher Gardens

A 20-acre riverside garden at Ashford, on the River Vartry, holding several thousand plant species gathered from around the world. It was established in 1868 by Dublin businessman Edward Walpole and developed over four generations of his family in a deliberately informal, naturalistic style rather than clipped Victorian formality — one of the better examples of that style anywhere. Current opening hours and admission are at mountushergardens.ie.

Kilruddery House and Gardens

Just south of Bray, Kilruddery has been the seat of the Brabazon family, the Earls of Meath, since around 1618. Its French-style formal gardens — laid out in the late 17th century — include a pair of long canal ponds each well over 150 metres long and a clipped "sylvan theatre" of beech hedging that's rare survivals of that garden style anywhere in Ireland or Britain. The house itself was remodelled in a Tudor-Revival style in the 1820s. See killruddery.com for current visiting arrangements.

The Sally Gap and the Military Road

A high mountain pass at around 500 metres, and the meeting point of several roads across the Wicklow uplands, including the Old Military Road — built by the British Army after the 1798 rebellion to open up rebel hideouts in the mountains. Driving it today is one of the best ways to see the interior of the Wicklow Mountains without a long hike, taking in wide open moorland, and two worthwhile stops:

• Lough Tay ("the Guinness Lake") — a dark, steep-sided lake on the privately owned Luggala Estate, with an imported white-sand beach on its northern shore, best seen from the roadside viewpoints on the R759 rather than up close, since the lake itself is not open to the public.
• Glenmacnass Waterfall — an 80-metre waterfall dropping in several staggered stages at the head of the Glenmacnass valley, with roadside parking right at the top.

Avoca

A small village about an hour south of Glendalough, known for two very different reasons: it was the main filming location for the long-running BBC series Ballykissangel, and it's home to Avoca Handweavers, a working weaving mill founded in the early 18th century that's often described as Ireland's oldest. The surrounding Vale of Avoca, where the Avonmore and Avonbeg rivers meet, was celebrated in Thomas Moore's 19th-century poem "The Meeting of the Waters."

The Wicklow Way

Ireland's oldest waymarked long-distance trail, running about 130km from Marlay Park on the edge of Dublin down to Clonegal in County Carlow, opened in 1981. Few visitors walk the whole thing, but the early stages through the Wicklow Mountains are entirely manageable as day walks from Dublin — see our Wicklow Mountains National Park guide for more on the park it passes through.

The coast: Bray and Greystones

Both towns sit on the DART line at the northern edge of the county and make an easy half-day from Dublin. Bray has a long seafront promenade and, on a clear day, views out to the Sugar Loaf inland. The cliffside walking path that historically linked Bray to Greystones has been closed at times due to landslips — check current status at bray.ie before planning a route around it.

Planning tips

• Pick a theme rather than trying to cover the whole county in a day — gardens (Mount Usher, Kilruddery, Powerscourt), mountains (Glendalough, Sally Gap), or coast (Bray, Greystones) each fill a day comfortably on their own.
• A car is genuinely the easiest way to see Wicklow beyond Glendalough; if you don't have one, an organised day tour from Dublin covers several of the sites above in a single outing.
• Bring layers regardless of the forecast — the uplands catch weather that the coast and city miss entirely.

Related reading

• Glendalough Guide
• Wicklow Mountains National Park Guide
• Best Wicklow Day Trips
• Best Day Trips from Dublin