Yep, Irish hospitality may be a cliché – right up there with leprechauns and kissing the Blarney Stone – but when you travel here you realise, the Emerald Isle revels in its old-school approach to life. Connemara really is as brooding and lonely as we’ve been led to believe. The Dublin of James Joyce still lingers on in odd pockets of the city. The Guinness really is that good. If you want to enjoy your stay, it’s best to leave your cynicism at the door and grab Ireland with both hands: learn the folklore of Roscommon and Donegal, go searching for faeries in Knocknerea Mountain, moan about the inclement weather and (above all) embrace the craic.