Here are four great hiking breaks to take in Ireland this summer

We can't get enough of walking holidays, now that foreign travel has been limited

A couple walking on Geokaun Mountain on Valentia Island.

It was time to fill the backpack, charge up the camera and remind myself once again, to buy a flask. Last Sunday, my cross-county road-trips resumed service for the first time in four months as I booted off for a morning hike at one of my favourite West Cork destinations, Gougane Barra. 

In that blissful, if blustery, morning sunshine, I hiked up the Slí na Sléibhte mountain trail, winding high into the Sheehy Mountains where parched hillsides peppered with stray Sitka spruce gave an air of Californication to the rugged Cork landscape.