Golf vacation in Ireland's Ancient East

The undulating fairway and dunes on the 13th hole at County Louth Golf Club in Ireland's Ancient East

A golf vacation in Ireland's Ancient East is a sublime and intoxicating mix of traditional links courses hugging the Irish Sea and mature parkland courses in the heart of the Irish countryside.  Many golf visitors to Ireland are wooed by the majestic links courses found along the west coast of Ireland. Yet, golfers are always in search of a new experience and the golf in Ireland's Ancient East offers this opportunity. Apart from the ancient history of the region stretching from The Boyne Valley in the North East southwards to Glendalough in County Wicklow and on to Wexford, Waterford and the iconic Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary, this is a relatively undiscovered part of Ireland in terms of the quality of its golf courses. County Louth (Baltray) is one of the best links courses to be found in Ireland and is sometimes overlooked by golfers in search of the more famous courses. County Louth Golf Club hosted The Irish Open in recent years and and is the home of The East of Ireland Amateur Golf Championship. Two little gems of Irish golf right on your doorstep at County Louth are Seapoint Golf links and Laytown and Bettystown, as traditional an Irish links course that you are likely to play.
In addition, you have all the big courses of the Dublin region close at hand including Portmarnock ( both courses), The Island, The European Club and Royal Dublin. St Anne's Golf Club is a lesser known course which shares Bull Island with Royal Dublin. There are two other links golf courses along this stretch of Ireland's eastern coast that are worthy of mention. Arklow Links and Rosslare Golf Club would grace many a fine Irish golf itinerary, yet the fact of the matter is that they are not played by overseas golfers visiting Ireland as much as they deserve to be played.
Ireland's Ancient East is the home of the best parkland courses in Ireland. The K Club, which hosted  the Ryder Cup in 2006, Carton House which hosted The Irish Open, Druids Glen is another Irish Open Course and Mount Juliet ( Jack Nicklaus' first Irish golf course design) bears testimony to this. In fact, Nicklaus' second Irish design at Killeen Castle hosted the Solheim Cup and is a great test of golf.
When we consider how best to plan a golf tour in Ireland within this region, we have identified two loops, namely Ireland's Ancient East (Northern) and Ireland's Ancient East (Southern). Each section is a week long itinerary making sure to include sufficient time to soak up the history and culture as you travel.