Monaghan

Culture-loving types should head to Castleblaney for eight days of drama in March.

Nestling among Monaghan's intimate rolling hills, the parish of Inniskeen has long been a home to poets and remains largely unchanged from the turn-of-the-century landscape that inspired Patrick Kavanagh, one of Ireland's foremost literary figures.

An award-winning museum with an excellent collection of historical artifacts from medieval crannógs to the 14th-century Cross of Clogher.