'Tis the season to thrill

GO IRELAND: Brace yourself, it's time to get festive. As the season looms large, we've a selection box of some of the best Christmas experiences possible, all wrapped up by SANDRA O'CONNELL

In the market

Gone are the days when we had to hop on a plane to get our quota of fairy lights and gluhwein. These days the country is awash with European-style Christmas markets that would give the Tivoli Gardens a run for their money.

One of the biggest is Galway’s Continental Christmas Market which, for its second year, will turn Eyre Square into a Christmas village filled with seasonal music, mulled wine and all-round good cheer.

Up to 70 huts will be decked out with food, drinks and crafts – some from Peru. The market runs from November 25th to December 18th. Stay right beside it at the Meyrick Hotel (hotelmeyrick.ie), where two nights BB plus dinner is available from €119.50 per person.

* Galwaychristmasmarket.ie

All aboard

Rathwood, the home and garden shopping complex in Tullow, Co Carlow, is all set to resume its Santa Train on Saturday, November 19th at 11am. Tickets went on sale online on September 1st with 3,000 selling in an hour. In all, 28,000 passengers climbed aboard last year.

The fare is €7 per adult and €15 per child and includes a ride through Santa’s Animal Park to see the reindeer getting ready for Christmas, a visit to Mrs Claus, and an elf-guided walk through to the woods to visit the man himself and get your pressie.

The whole experience lasts an hour while the store is good for Christmas gifts. With a birds of prey centre and a chocolate factory next door, it’s a great day out too.

* rathwood.com

Crafty moves

It just wouldn’t be Christmas without the annual National Crafts Design Fair, which takes place at the RDS from November 30th to December 4th. The country’s largest celebration of crafts is the best chance you’ll have of getting all your gifts under one roof with the work of more than 500 designers and craftspeople on show.

More than that, it includes cookery demonstrations from Donal Skehan and a Christmas food emporium with more than 100 artisanal producers.

Tickets cost €10 for adults, and under 16s go free. There’s a complimentary gift wrapping service on offer and, even better, you can get a re-admission pass if you don’t get to see everything in one visit.

* nationalcraftsfair.ie

Tops for trees

Of course, you can nip down to your local petrol station forecourt for a Christmas tree, but where’s the festivity in that?

Nick and Anne Foley’s Killarney Christmas Tree Farm allows you come out with the kids, wander round their 40-acre forest and choose the perfect tree for your house. Prices start at €30 and sizes go right up to eight metres, though you’d want a big boot to lug that one.

“It’s a great day out but if people are keen I’d recommend they come early in December, or even late November, to get their pick of the crop, before the big wholesalers arrive,” says Nick.

The good news is that even if you’re late, you’ll still get to enjoy the festive fun, with Nick laying on a pig on a spit at weekends in the run-up to Christmas.

* killarneychristmastrees.com

Christmas cave

Aillwee Cave in Co Clare has an award winning Christmas experience which, apparently, all began in the summer of 2000 when Santa found himself running out of manufacturing space and sent elves out throughout Europe to find an isolated place full of secret passages, away from prying eyes, where toys could be built.

Apparently, its large car park makes the perfect landing spot for Santa’s helicopter (the sleigh is only used on Christmas Eve, of course). In any case, it was negotiated that, in return for the rent-free use of the caves as an overflow factory, Santa would make himself available to meet children.

Tickets costs €33 for kids and €15 for adults, which includes face painting, a puppet show and carnival entertainment too, plus complimentary entry to the Burren Birds of Prey Centre. On Thursday, December 1st and Wednesday, December 7th, children go half price.

* aillweecave.ie

Cathedral voices

Handel’s Messiah is back in St Patrick’s Cathedral, performed by the Culwick Choral Society, from 8pm to 10pm on November 23rd and 24th, and is not to be missed. Tickets cost €28 and proceeds are in aid of One Family, a charity which supports one-parent families.

It was, of course, here in 1742 that the combined choirs of Christ Church and St Patrick’s Cathedrals sang the first performance of the work.

Save yourself the drive home by booking in to Jury’s Inn in Christchurch, just over the road. Doubles are available online, on a room-only basis, for €77 on the nights in question.

* stpatrickscathedral.ie

Kilmainham Christmas

From the sublime to the completely secular, the 7up on Ice event has grown up to become the 7Up Winter Wonderland, billed as the country’s newest and biggest winter park (and possibly its only one).

Taking place from December 8th to January 8th at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, it includes not just the country’s biggest ice rink but also a traditional Christmas market made up of dozens of beautifully decorated wooden chalets, selling Irish and Continental crafts and gifts.

There’ll be a Christmas Circus in a heated Big Top plus funfair rides. With all the gluwein, chestnuts and bratwurst, you could be anywhere in Mittel Europe. With the way things have been going, we might even get Mittel European snow.

* 7upwinterwonderland.ie

North’s pole

One of Northern Ireland’s best kept secrets is the fact that it is home to Santa.

Santa’s Cottage, in the mountains between Newry and Newcastle, is known as the official residence of Santa in Ireland, as awarded by the Greenland-Denmark World Congress of Santas.

Visitors get to see the elves at work in Santa’s workshop, watch as Santa comes down the chimney, enter Santa’s igloo and meet Rudolph.

The visit takes a good hour and a half, longer if you arrive early for hot chocolate and marshmallows at Santa’s cafe.

Be warned, online booking is well underway, to the point that weekends over the festive season are almost booked out.

Make a full day of it by visiting Tullymore Forest Park nearby or make a luxury night of it by staying at the Slieve Donard in Newcastle, with doubles from £110 (€128). Tickets to Santa’s Cottage cost £18 (€21) for kids and £13 (€15) for grown-ups.

* santascottage.ie

Christmas with taste

If you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to check out Dublin’s Convention Centre, the Taste of Christmas event should be just the ticket.

Taking place from November 25th to 27th, this year it sees a number of new initiatives, including a MasterChef Ireland live theatre show in the main auditorium featuring judges Dylan McGrath and Nick Munier.

Chef Kevin Dundon will be back, while some of the capital’s best restaurants will be on hand so you can try their signature dishes.

While you eat your way around the 100-plus food exhibitors, the kids can enjoy a Hamley’s Christmas Morning event, taking place on Sunday morning, including face painting, Christmas movies, all sorts of stocking fillers and, of course, the man in red himself.

There are a variety of ticket prices, ranging from basic shopper tickets at €15 to VIP ones giving you the best seats in the house for the live shows, access to the VIP suite and complimentary cocktails, at €47.

* tasteofchristmas.ie

Festive folk park

Bunratty Folk Park, Co Clare is brilliant at any time of the year, but at Christmas it turns into a proper winter wonderland, with Mrs Claus and a troop of elves on hand to welcome visitors throughout December.

Of course, Santa is there in his grotto but there are also story tellers, mulled wine and mince pies, puppet shows and a chance to bump into old Scrooge, who’ll be schlepping about the place.

The place will be festooned with fairy lights and holly but go early to make a day of it, because the park closes at 4pm.

Bunratty Castle Hotel, just across the road, has accommodation in the run-up to Christmas from €110 for two adults, with kids sharing for free.

* shannonheritage.com

Candlelight walk

The start of the holiday feeling in our house is always the magical candlelight walk in Avondale House and Forest Park in Rathdrum. Scheduled to take place on Sunday, November 13th – weather dependent – it’s not even billed as a Christmas event yet it couldn’t be more festive.

Walkers head through the woods in pitch darkness guided by thousands of candles in jam jars. For the kids it’s like something from Grimm.

The walk terminates back at the house, Parnell’s home, with a bonfire, tea and biscuits. Tickets cost €15 per car or €5 per individual walker and proceeds go to Ballinacor Community Park. It’s also buggy friendly.

* coillte.ie