I used Paddy’s day to cycle a 130km loop out from Dublin to the Neolithic sites of Meath.  It's not far as the bike cycles from Dublin City to the neolithic and Bronze Age sites of Meath including Fourknocks,  Newgrange and the Brú na Bónnie other monuments and then Tara. And you get the battle of the Boyne site thrown in as a bonus, that's a lot of history!

Here I show you how to cycle this using the quiet country backroads of north Dublin to avoid the very very busy National and Regional roads in the area. This route follows the walkway south of the Boyne that gives you an excellent view of Newgrange across the river and brings you past the pool where the Salmon of Knowledge was caught. If you are on a road bike you might want to stick to the parallel road for this bit as its a packed earth track, the road is about 50m away along the 3-4km length.

To visit Newgrange and/or Knowth you need to go to the visitor centre which is also south of the river and get a ticket - at peak times you should probably book in advance. You can just stop and visit Dowth by cycling to it directly. No ticket is needed for Tara but for Fourknocks you need to call in at the local family they hold onto the public access key for the site.

This route which starts and returns to the Phoenix Monument in the Phoenix park is about 130km in length and has about 1000m of ascent including 3-4 steep ridges near Naul. If that sounds too ambitious you could just use the easterly or westerly route to just go to one of the sites and return by that same route for a 80-100km trip depending on site.

Video at https://youtu.be/T5Px5eBoW0Y

Photos from the route on My Instagram