King Sitric Seafood Bar & Accommodation

A working fishing village at the end of the DART line, wrapped around a rugged headland with some of the best coastal walking near Dublin.

Howth sits at the tip of its own peninsula on the north side of Dublin Bay, and the DART drops you right at the harbour, about half an hour from Dublin city centre. That makes it one of the easiest coastal escapes in the country to reach without a car, and one of the few places where you can combine a proper cliff walk with a city break.

Step off the train and it still feels like a working port rather than a suburb. Trawlers land their catch along the harbour most days, and the piers are lined with fishmongers, seafood restaurants and chippers serving crab, mussels and fish landed a few hours earlier.

The Howth Cliff Path is the main draw for a B&B stay here. It is a network of colour-coded looped trails rather than a single route, from a gentle summit stroll of a couple of kilometres up to a longer loop of around 12 kilometres, all tracing the cliffs above Dublin Bay with views out to Ireland’s Eye, Lambay Island and the Baily Lighthouse.

Beyond the walk, Howth Castle’s grounds are open to the public, with wild rhododendron gardens at their best in early summer and the National Transport Museum of Ireland tucked into the old stable yard. On Sunday mornings a market sets up near the DART station selling artisan bread, smoked fish and local produce, and boat trips run out to Ireland’s Eye for a different angle on the same cliffs.