Avoid the chaos at Dublin Airport with these alternative holiday ideas

Breeze through

As beleaguered Dublin Airport battles on – or rather, beleaguered people battle on through Dublin Airport – set your sights on Ireland’s regional airports for a quick and relatively easy getaway. Sunway has departures from Cork to the Costa del Sol, Shannon to Corfu and Malta, and Knock to the Algarve. You can even get to Benidorm via Kerry. Prices for last-minute trips go from €585 pps for seven nights in the Costa del Sol, and it’s just one euro more for the Algarve trip, both departing June 14th; sunway.ie. Head to the Canaries from Cork with Cassidy Travel, from €516 pps for seven nights in Lanzarote, departing June 25th; cassidytravel.ie. Or go north to go south with seven nights in Fuerteventura from £709 (€830) pps, departing Belfast on June 29th; clickandgo.com.

Sail on

Learn to sail, and you may never have to worry about airports again. The latest cool trip with Rubicon 3 Adventure takes you on a 12-day learning to sail holiday, departing the Faroe Islands to Arctic Norway. It brings you right into the Arctic Circle, while learning great stuff such as celestial navigation, sail trimming and exactly what a spinnaker does. You’ll be part of a crew of just nine, and no experience is necessary. The June 27th departure comes with a nice discount of £900, making it £1,499 (€1,637) all in. Flights (via Paris) extra; rubicon3adventure.com.

Townhouse in the country

Continuing my informal quest to find Ireland’s nicest guesthouse, I was delighted to discover Lucy O’Sullivan’s Bridge Street Townhouse in Kenmare. A lovely spot on the river, it is replete with contemporary craft, artworks, antiques and eclectic treasured objects, all put together with style. And Oh! the breakfasts! A natural host, O’Sullivan is a mine of information to set guests on the right path for further adventures, but you might find you never want to leave. B&B from €150 per room per night; bridgestreettownhouse.com.

Get to the point

If the weather’s right, why would you want to leave Ireland at all? Okay, so it’s a big “if”, but following the wisdom that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just being poorly dressed, say to hell with it, and head to Donegal. Harvey’s Point has a five-night retreat, that kicks off with Sunday lunch, and continues with B&B in a Lakeshore Suite, with dinner on three of the evenings during your stay included.

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Donegal has 12 Blue Flag beaches, and other activities include sea stack climbing with Iain Miller (or you could always settle down to a more sedate picnic), so you’ll have plenty of scope to work it all off again. Five nights from €799 pps; harveyspoint.com.