Archaeological Sites You Can Visit from Dublin Without a Car

Purchases made through some links on this page may provide The Detour Effect with commissions (at no extra cost to you). Thank you!

Day trips from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher or the Giant’s Causeway are practically obligatory for first-time visitors to Ireland who want to experience the island’s majestic landscapes, but travel itineraries may look quite different for those who have a special interest in archaeology. Many people don’t realize there are some incredible cultural heritage sites accessible to you from Dublin. The best part is you don’t even have to rent a car! 

If you come from a country where people drive on the right side of the road, the idea of driving on the left in the Republic of Ireland can be scary. Avoiding a rental car does put some limits on how deeply you can explore. For instance, while you can take a train from Dublin to Sligo, once you arrive in Sligo it’s difficult to see sights like Carrowkeel, Carrowmore, Knocknarea, or the Caves of Kesh without a car (you’d have to hire a private tour, which is expensive if you’re a solo traveler).

Luckily, not all is lost. While the public transportation routes don’t hit every hidden corner of Ireland, there are still plenty of train and bus lines you can rely on to deliver you into Ireland’s prehistoric, Viking, or Anglo-Norman past. When in doubt, there are also affordable guided group tours to fill in the gaps.

Brú na Bóinne: Newgrange and Knowth

In the Boyne Valley in County Meath, a collection of Neolithic passage tombs built circa ~3200 BC are collectively referred to as “Brú na Bóinne,” meaning “palace/mansion of the Boyne.” The three most impressive tombs, Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, sit in the bend of the River Boyne, itself a focus of mythical Irish folklore. Brú na Bóinne is one of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the island of Ireland.

One of the River Boyne’s most famous legends concerns the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, who gained infinite wisdom by eating the Salmon of Knowledge from the River Boyne.

From the outside, each burial mound looks like a man-made hill surrounded at the base by kerbstones decorated with petroglyphs, or rock art carvings. Smaller white quartz pieces quarried from faraway places like the Wicklow Mountains are incorporated. Upon closer inspection, landowners and archaeologists found that each mound has an entrance connecting a long internal hallway to multiple chambers (usually three) under a corbelled roof. Cremated and sometimes unburnt skeletal remains were laid to rest in the chambers 5,000 years ago.

Newgrange is the most famous of all the passage tombs in Ireland. One of its most iconic features is the “roofbox” above the entrance, which allows a stream of sunlight to illuminate the inside only once a year on winter solstice. Tourists can enter a lottery to be one of the chosen few who get to experience the tomb on this day in December. For the rest of us, it’s possible to enter the tomb year-around by joining a guided tour. The guide will trigger a re-enactment via artificial light so you can experience what it’s like on winter solstice.

Knowth is actually much larger than Newgrange, has two separate passageways on either side, is surrounded by tons of smaller satellite tombs, and you are allowed to climb on top of it to get a view of the Boyne Valley. Yet, since you can’t go inside the tombs at Knowth, it doesn’t garner as much name recognition as Newgrange. For me, one of the most memorable artifacts at Knowth is a kerbstone with crescent moon shapes stretching across it. This is known as the “Calendar Stone” and various theories guess at what sort of lunar phases it’s intended to track.

Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth contain the largest collection of megalithic art in Western Europe. They are older than Stonehenge and Egypt’s pyramids and should be regarded as equally important. In my opinion, they are even more intriguing than Stonehenge due to their elaborate architecture, remarkably intact preservation, and the actual human remains and grave goods found inside during early excavations, yet they get surprisingly little fanfare and visitation by comparison. They’re not even the most visited heritage site managed by the Office of Public Works in Ireland – with 114,934 visits in 2023, the monuments of Brú na Bóinne came in 8th place in a popularity contest. This is shocking to me! Perhaps people don’t realize how easy it is to reach Newgrange from Dublin on public transportation.

How to get to Brú na Bóinne: Newgrange and Knowth from Dublin without a car

Take the train via Irish Rail from Connolly Station in Dublin to Drogheda (MacBride) Station in Drogheda, a one hour ride. From here, hop on the 163 bus to Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre, where all tours begin.

The 163 shuttle bus conveniently waits immediately outside the entrance to Drogheda (MacBride) Station. It only runs a few times a day, so be sure to check the schedules in advance. Google Maps predicts a 45 minute bus ride, but my driver skipped some stops and whipped the bus around like a racecar. I arrived at the visitor center in record time.

You must pre-book a guided tour in order to visit the monuments at Brú na Bóinne. You cannot visit Newgrange or Knowth self-guided, and arriving day-of without an advance ticket is a bad idea as tours tend to sell out. You can either book online directly and take public transportation to get there as I’ve described, or you could book a third party guided group tour that picks you up in Dublin. Some of these third party tours may include other Boyne Valley historical sites like Monasterboice in addition to the tombs, if you want a little extra bang for your buck.

When you book directly, you can book just Newgrange, just Knowth, or both Newgrange and Knowth. The tour for both Newgrange and Knowth costs €18 and lasts about 3 hours. 

Dowth is not included on these tours, but people can drive to Dowth and explore by themselves. It’s not possible to go inside the passage tomb at Dowth; you will only admire the outside. Without your own car, visiting Dowth would require a taxi, or I guess a sketchy 40 minute road walk from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center.

Hill of Tara

Without knowing anything else about the Hill of Tara, hearing that it was once the seat of the High Kings of Ireland sounds pretty impressive. Experts believe it would have been treated as an inauguration/coronation stage, though I haven’t been able to pinpoint what sort of archaeological evidence is leading to this conclusion, or why it’s acceptable to call the large Lia Fáil standing stone the “coronation stone.”

It seems ancient knowledge and stories of the Hill that have been passed down through mythology get combined with archaeological clues to create a larger picture. At the very least, there is evidence of celebrations and feasting, and it was undoubtedly a ceremonial site. It’s thought that at one time “all Irish roads led to Tara,” or at least the legendary Five Roads of Tara (this research project aiming to locate the original roads is quite interesting).

The Hill of Tara is supposedly named after the goddess Téa, who married a High King named Érimón. There is a female figure carved onto St. Adamnan’s pillar in the churchyard at the Hill of Tara which some people identify as a sheela-na-gig, but I think this is a lazy guess. It doesn’t have the usual features of a sheela-na-gig. I like to think she represents Téa.

“The name ‘Mound of the Hostages’ derives from the custom of overkings like those at Tara retaining important personages from subject kingdoms to ensure their submission. One of the legendary kings of Tara was named Niall of the Nine Hostages in recognition of the fact that he held hostages from all the provinces of Ireland and from Britain.” – Mythical Ireland

When walking around at the Hill of Tara you’ll notice evidence of what’s called a “cursus,” a long trench with raised sides that leads to the Mound of Hostages. Perhaps this was a processional walkway. 

You cannot go inside the Mound of the Hostages, but you can walk all over the rest of the site. You are not even relegated to any particular pathways. I was surprised to see tons of locals out walking their dogs on the Hill of Tara, treating it like any community park. 

How to get to the Hill of Tara from Dublin without a car

To reach the Hill of Tara from Dublin, take the Kells-bound 109 bus via Bus Éireann from the Busáras stop to the Tara Cross stop, about an hour’s ride. Unfortunately this doesn’t drop you directly at the Hill of Tara and you’ll need to walk about another 30 minutes on the side of the road, but at least it’s mostly pleasant country roads.

Visiting the Hill of Tara is free and you do not have to buy advance tickets or tours. However, it’s harder to contextualize what you’re looking at without a guide since the earthworks here are much more eroded than at Newgrange or Knowth. There are free onsite tours every day which you can ask about at the visitor center.

The more convenient option is to sign up for a guided group tour to the Hill of Tara from Dublin. I chose to do this because the tour also visited Loughcrew Cairns, Trim Castle, and Fore Abbey. As far as I know, Fore Abbey and Loughcrew Cairns are not accessible via public transportation from Dublin, so it was worth it for me to find a tour that hits all of these sites. 

Loughcrew Cairns

Loughcrew Cairns might be my favorite of the passage tomb sites I visited in Ireland. Since they’re located atop majestic hills overlooking the landscape, the atmosphere feels particularly mystical. I can see why Neolithic people would have chosen this spot. Hill of Tara, Newgrange, and Knowth are on lowlands, at least relatively speaking.

There’s also been less modern intervention at Loughcrew than at Newgrange and Knowth. At Brú na Bóinne they’ve put up concrete reinforcements which make the dome shapes less authentic, though of course I appreciate the conservation effort which will hopefully preserve those sites for generations to come.

At Loughcrew, there are four natural hills all in a row. Each hill once had a tumulus with cairns on top. Together, they’re known as Slieve na Calliagh or Sliabh na Caillí, meaning “Mountain of the Cailleach,” referring to the divine witch or hag of Irish mythology. Legend says the monuments were created when a witch jumped from hill to hill, dropping rocks as she went, thereby creating the cairns. There’s one big rock at the base of Cairn T known as the Witch’s Chair, which you can sit on while making a wish. Just be careful, for if you sit longer than ten seconds, you may be cursed instead of granted your wish!

Cairn T’s passage tomb is still intact, and this is the main visitation destination for tourists who are willing to do a short but steep uphill hike. It’s forbidden to climb the other mountains of the Slieve na Calliagh range, which are on private land. The tumuli on the other hills are mostly destroyed anyway, so Cairn T is special. The sun illuminates the inside of the tomb every year on the spring and autumn equinoxes, similar to how the winter equinox illuminates Newgrange.

You used to be able to enter the tomb at Cairn T, but in recent years it’s been closed to the public because it’s not structurally sound. There are also signs asking visitors not to climb on top of Cairn T (honestly I wish they’d put signs like this at the Mound of Hostages too; I don’t know why people need to summit a 10 foot grave so bad. What do you think you’re going to see up there?). You can peek through the bars to admire the petroglyphs on the entrance kerbstones, and you can get an idea of what the inside might look like by observing the three small satellite tombs around Cairn T, which are missing their roofs. Like at Newgrange, these tombs consist of an entrance hallway leading to cruciform chambers.

You can walk all over the satellite tombs and the rest of the hilltop, and so can the sheep. Like at the Hill of Tara, I am surprised that people and animals are allowed to basically trample all over this place. I guess they already survived 5,000 years of weather, but at what rate does deterioration speed up with human interference? I wonder if they will ever fence these monuments off completely, like at Stonehenge.

How to get to Loughcrew Cairns from Dublin without a car

As far as I know, Loughcrew Cairns is not accessible on public transportation from Dublin, so the best option is to join the guided group tour that also visits the Hill of Tara, Trim Castle, and Fore Abbey.

For those that do drive, visiting Loughcrew is free and there are typically interpretive guides onsite from mid-May to mid-September if you want to ask questions.

Glendalough Monastic City

The highlight of my Wicklow Way thru-hike was exploring the ruins of the monastic city at Glendalough. It was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and was a pilgrimage destination for centuries. I suppose it’s still a pilgrimage for walkers on St. Kevin’s Way. Are tourists also pilgrims?

Among the ruins, visitors especially appreciate the cathedral, cemetery, St. Kevin’s Church, and the iconic Round Tower. Glendalough was attacked and raided multiple times by invaders, including Anglo-Normans and Vikings, and was frequently rebuilt. Most of the buildings we see today are 10th – 12th century.

The monastic site is tucked into the Glendalough Valley near two beautiful lakes. Tourists enjoy walking along the shorelines, viewing the Poulanass waterfall, and heading into the mountains via The Spinc trail, one of the most popular day hikes in Wicklow.

If interested in hiking a few sections of the Wicklow Way, I would recommend the northern sections in between Glendalough and Dublin as opposed to the southern stretch from Glendalough to Clonegal. In fact, you could take the bus from Dublin to Glendalough and then hike all the way back over the course of 2-3 days!

How to get to Glendalough from Dublin without a car

St. Kevin’s Bus Services operates between Dublin and Glendalough. It’s €14 one-way or €23 round-trip between St. Stephen’s Green and Glendalough Visitor Center. The ride is about an hour and a half.

There are other public transportation options that involve transfers, such as taking the 126 Go-Ahead Ireland bus from Connolly Station to Naas, then switching to the 183 Local Link bus to Glendalough Visitor Center. This would take about 2 hours.

Alternatively, you could book a guided day trip to Glendalough from Dublin. I think the one that includes a sheepdog show sounds fun!

Trim Castle and Bective Abbey

Trim Castle is the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland. A wooden version was originally built in 1172 by Hugh de Lacy, a baron of Henry II, along our beloved River Boyne. Over the years it was rebuilt and fortified until its final stone iteration was completed around 1220. Its sturdy box-like shape gives it a particularly forbidding, powerful, looming presence. 

De Lacy was installed as the Lord of Meath as part of Henry II’s effort to maintain control of a region he feared Strongbow might seize. The king began to extend the same paranoia onto de Lacy, though, worried he could defect and crown himself as an independent king of Ireland. We’ll never know if he had such designs, as an Irish lord named Sinnach Ua Catharnaigh, whose lands had been taken by de Lacy, ordered an assassination. De Lacy was decapitated in 1186. 

De Lacy’s body was at one time interred at Bective Abbey in County Meath and his head at St. Thomas’ Abbey in Dublin, but eventually his complete remains all ended up at St. Thomas.

Bective Abbey is also a great day trip from Dublin because you can freely roam the ruins as if it were a playground. I was particularly intrigued by the remaining columns of the cloister and a spiral staircase that leads to nowhere. 

The Anglo-Norman monastic site was founded in 1147, though most of what you’ll see on a modern visit to Bective Abbey is dated to the 13th – 15th centuries. It was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1536 as part of the dissolution of the monasteries.

Scenes from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart were filmed at Trim Castle and Bective Abbey, and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel also filmed at Bective Abbey!

How to get to Trim Castle and Bective Abbey from Dublin without a car

Take the Athboy-bound 111 bus via Bus Éireann from Busáras to the Ring Road stop, a 1 hour ride, to reach Trim Castle. It’s free to wander the castle grounds, or if you want to go inside the structure, you can join an onsite guided tour of the Keep for €5. 

The same guided group tour from Dublin that visits Hill of Tara also visits Trim Castle. I was a little disappointed that it didn’t include entrance to the Keep, and we arrived at the castle at a time that didn’t coincide with signing up for the €5 Keep tour.

Bective Abbey is free to visit. From Trim Castle you can take the 190 Drogheda-bound bus via Bus Éireann to reach Bective Abbey. It’s a 10 minute ride from the Trim Castle stop to the Connells Cross stop, then a 10 minute walk.

If you prefer to visit Bective Abbey direct from Dublin, take the 109B Trim-bound bus via Bus Éireann, boarding at Busáras and getting off at the Bective Abbey stop, which is about a 1 hour ride.

National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology

Visiting the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology doesn’t require organizing a day trip from Dublin because it’s in Dublin! Artifacts recovered from many of the historic sites on this list are on display at the National Museum, which is free to visit. I would recommend checking out the exhibits after completing all of your day trips, rather than beforehand, because you’ll be able to envision where they came from.

Read about some of my favorite artifacts from the National Museum of Ireland.

Other Archaeology-Themed Day Trip Ideas from Dublin

I have written about the places I’ve actually been to, but Ireland is a goldmine of precious archaeological sites and museums. Here are a few more ideas of places to visit on a day trip from Dublin:

• The Viking Triangle in Waterford (736 JJ Kavanagh bus, or 4 bus via Bus Éireann, 2.5 hour ride)
• Ballyedmonduff Wedge Tomb (Green Line LUAS tram to Dundrum, followed by 44B Dublin City Bus to Fiery Lane, 1 hour total journey)
• Fourknocks (You’d have to hire a private tour if you don’t have a car)
• Carrowkeel, Carrowmore, Knocknarea, Caves of Kesh (These are all in Sligo, which you can reach on a 3 hour train ride with Irish Rail, but once you’re in Sligo you have to hire a private tour or rent a car)
• Irish National Heritage Park (740 Wexford bus, 2.5 hour ride)
• Fore Abbey (Included on the Hill of Tara guided group trip)
• Dublinia Viking Museum (in Dublin)

Megalithic Ireland is a nearly encyclopedic resource that lists significant sites by county or by type, including stone circles, wedge tombs, Ogham stones, abbeys, castles, and ringforts. 

Recommendations also depend on what era of history you’re interested in. Blarney Castle and Kilkenny Castle may be interesting to you if you’d like to fast forward to the Middle Ages.

We think of elemental construction materials as being primitive, but people of the past really built things to last, didn’t they? So much has come and gone in the interim, but these tumuli, abbeys, and castles have stood the test of time.

Having visited other petroglyph sites and pictograph sites, plus ancient dwellings and burial mounds at places like Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan, Cahokia Mounds in Missouri (which are actually strikingly similar to the mounds in Ireland) and along the Natchez Trace, I’ve often heard theories that assign astrological motivations to the original artists and architects. Nine times out of ten, I think this is total hogwash. People go out of their way to force these theories. To write a multi-page article full of mathematical equations and justifications to prove that one lone rock carving on the underside of a boulder is actually the key to the entire celestial cosmos is reaching a bit. I even think it’s silly that they constantly put special significance on the direction every petroglyph or pueblo happens to be facing; maybe it’s looking towards the west for no particular reason at all?

However, witnessing the passage tombs of Ireland forced me to put my skepticism aside. These monuments were clearly built with intention, and the solstices lighting them up only on certain days of the year cannot possibly be coincidence. These early agricultural communities created calendars to help them measure the seasons. It would have taken generations of careful study and observation to work out the patterns and movements of the sun and moon to such an accurate degree, followed by immense effort to haul the kerbstones and build the monuments in perfect alignment. It really changes your perspective on what Neolithic people were capable of and highlights the abundance of sophisticated knowledge and wisdom they had accumulated.

These archaeology-themed day trips from Dublin will challenge you and inspire awe in equal measure. It’s such a privilege that we have the ability to interact with relics from so long ago. In a way, it allows us to interact with the people who built them, too, and tap into something forgotten in our DNA. It’s important that we protect these sites and cherish them while we still can. Treat them with respect, Leave No Trace, and have fun!

🏨 Search budget hostels in Dublin or standard hotel options in Dublin.
✈️ Coming to Ireland from further afield? Use an Airalo eSIM for affordable international cell data and don’t forget to protect your investment with travel insurance.

Related:

Pin It: