Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland and was once a shipbuilding hub: The Titanic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard. In the Titanic Quarter, the Titanic Belfast museum, opened in 2012, tells the story of the shipyard and the ship in nine galleries; nearby are the SS Nomadic, the last remaining White Star Line vessel, and the historic slipways.In the city center, Donegall Square is home to the City Hall, opened in 1906, with the lively Cathedral Quarter surrounding St Anne's Cathedral to its north. The Ulster Museum in the Botanic Gardens is free. The Peace Walls between Falls Road and Shankill and their murals recall the time of the Troubles; many visitors explore them on a Black Taxi Tour.

The Giant's Causeway on Northern Ireland's north coast consists of around 40,000 regularly shaped basalt columns, formed 50 to 60 million years ago by volcanic activity. Together with the adjacent Causeway Coast, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986; much of the area belongs to the National Trust, which operates a visitor centre with an exhibition.Along the coast are other well-known destinations: the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge over a 20-meter-deep chasm, for which you must book a time slot in advance, and the ruins of Dunluce Castle on the cliffs between Portballintrae and Portrush. Inland stands the Dark Hedges beech avenue, which has been closed to vehicle traffic since 2017.

Glenveagh National Park in northwest County Donegal spans approximately 16,000 hectares of mountains, moors, and lakes; golden eagles have been reintroduced here since 2000. At its heart lies Glenveagh Castle on the shore of Lough Veagh, a castle built between 1867 and 1873 with extensive gardens, which was later handed over to the state.Access to the park is free; a shuttle bus runs from the visitor centre to the castle, which you can visit with a guided tour. The castle is closed on some weekdays, so check opening hours in advance.

Brú na Bóinne in the Boyne Valley north of Dublin is one of Europe's most significant Stone Age landscapes and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993. The Newgrange passage tomb was built around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza; at the winter solstice, the light of the rising sun shines through an opening above the entrance directly into the burial chamber.You can only visit Newgrange and the neighbouring Knowth with a guided tour starting from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre near Donore; from there, shuttle buses take groups to the monuments. Tickets are limited, so advance online booking is highly recommended. Places in the chamber on solstice morning are allocated annually by lottery.

The Northwest is the most remote and least visited part of the Republic. In County Sligo, the landscape is shaped by the flat-topped Benbulben, surf beaches, and the memory of poet W. B. Yeats; in Donegal, the Slieve League cliffs plunge over 600 meters down to the sea, and in Glenveagh National Park, a castle stands by a lonely lake.The distances are long and the roads are narrow, but beaches and viewpoints are often empty even in summer. Without a car, the region is difficult to explore.