Howth is a cute seaside village on the Howth peninsula to the East of Dublin city. It’s a great place to escape the city, explore cute shops and get some great food (specifically fish and chips!). A day trip to Howth is the perfect way to break up you time in the city.
Even better is that Howth is home to some very cute seals that can often be seen in the harbour. There is a regular who can almost always be seen and even has his own facebook page!
How to Get To Howth
Luckily, it is very easy to get from Dublin to Howth, and there are a couple of options. The easiest way is the DART train from Dublin Connolly station to Howth train station. This journey takes just under minutes and there are trains roughly every 20-30 minutes. You can buy tickets online or at the station. We decided to buy tickets when we arrived at the station and they were about €5 return each (so cheap!). The train schedule can be found here.
If the train isn’t running, there is also a bus that leaves every 30 minutes from Busáras station in Dublin. It goes to Howth train station and takes between 45-55 minutes each way. Tickets can be purchased at the station and are about €1.30 – €2.00 one way, so this option is also really affordable.
The last option to get to Howth is a tour from Dublin, which can be booked on Get Your Guide. This tour is a half day tour, including a hike to Howth Head Park with a guide and an optional ferry trip. This tour is a full day tour by bus which picks up and drops off in the middle of Dublin, has 1.5 hours of free time in Howth, and also visits the nearby Malahide Castle. Both options would be a convenient way to see Howth if you prefer to have everything organised for you!
Cliff Walks
If you’re into walks, Howth has some great cliff side walks that are all relatively easy and have some spectular views. All of them start and end at the Howth train station and they’re all colour coded. The blue and green routes are very similar, both following a tramline and cutting through the peninsula. They both stop at a place called The Summit and then head back to the station via the cliffs. Both the blue (7km) and green (6km) routes take 2 hours return.
The next hardest is the red route which also heads to The Summit but just via a longer route. It takes 2.5 hours and is 8km. Lastly is the purple route which cuts through the peninsula via a golf course. It is 12km, takes around 3 hours return and goes along a large portion of the cliff so would have some beautiful views. There are walks for every skill level but if you don’t want to do one of the loops, it would stil be amazing to just walk to the cliffs and back.
If long walks aren’t your thing, we would recommend walking through the city and along the harbour wall to the Howth Lighthouse. This takes about 20 minutes from Howth Train Satation and you might see some seals from the wall too.
Museum & Howth Views all in One
Another great place to visit is the Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum Of Vintage Radio. This is a collection of vintage radio and communcation pieces all collected by a man named Pat Herbert. His collection has been housed in the Martello Tower #2 which is an old defense tower built in 1805. This museum is open 11am-4pm Monday to Friday May to October and weekends only November to April and tickets are only €5.
However if the museum is shut or you’re not interested, we still recommend going up to the tower for the views. To get to the entrance, walk up Abbey street and the entrance is a steep street off to the left. From the top there’s a great view over the harbour and it is well worth the 5-10 minute walk up there.
Shops & Food
Howth has some great little shops, cafes and restaurants and one to visit if you’re there on the weekend is the Howth Market. Open 8am-6pm on the weekends and bank holidays, this small market is located right near the train station. It sells local baked goods, fruit, vegetables, and cute hand made gifts. If you happen to be in Howth on a weekday, still drop by because some of the permanent shops may be open.
Howth is also known for it’s incredible seafood, so it’s a great place to get fish and chips! There are quite a few places to pick from so it can be overwhelming, but there are a lot of good places on the Harbour Wall. We ended up getting takeaway from Crabby Jo’s – Wrights of Howth, and would recommend it. For lunch dessert (because you always need lunch dessert) we went to Gino’s Gelato along Howth Pier Park. Katherine still talks about the nutella and cookies gelato she had, and we’d just spent 4 weeks in Italy so it must have been special.
We would absolutely recommend a day trip to Howth if you have a spare day in Dublin. It is so quick, easy and affordable to get to, and feels so beachy and relaxed. It’s such a different vibe to Dublin, and it’s a lovely spot to get out of the city. There’s some great walks to do, cute shops to look through, wonderful food to eat and lots of harbour seals to watch. Definitely worth it!
If you want to see everything we got up to in Howth as well as our other days in Dublin, you can see it all in our vlog:
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