Ireland's Ancient East Food Road Trip: The South East and the Boyne

Ireland's Ancient East food is farm and sea produce eaten between old places: the farmland of the Boyne Valley, Wexford's fishing villages and fields, Waterford's blaa and coast, and the streets of Kilkenny. The Ancient East is a tourism brand, not a set road, so you build the route yourself. Choose two or three bases, book one dinner in each and leave lunches loose.

This guide shows how to link the Boyne Valley with the south east, what to eat in each, when to go and how to get a table on a busy weekend, with the Mosey tools that help at each step.

What is Ireland's Ancient East, and how do you plan food around it?

Ireland's Ancient East is a tourism brand for the east coast and parts of the midlands and south. Unlike the Wild Atlantic Way, it has no set driving route. It links sights through a number of counties, grouped under names such as the Land of 5000 Dawns (which takes in the Boyne Valley counties of Meath and Louth), the Historic Heartland (Kilkenny among them) and the Celtic Coast (Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford and east Cork). The sights are old: passage tombs, monasteries, medieval towns and castles.

That is useful for a food trip, because it means no stretch of road is the "correct" one. You can start in the north and finish in the south, or the other way round, and stop wherever a town looks good. It also means nobody has decided for you where lunch is. The plan below does that part.

If you are still choosing a region, our Wild Atlantic Way food guide covers the west coast in the same way.

How do you link the Boyne and the south east in one trip?

Treat it as three bases, with day trips from each, rather than a different bed every night. One bed in each area means one bag to pack and one dinner you can book properly.

Time you have	Bases	How to use it
A long weekend	Boyne Valley, or Wexford and Waterford	Pick one end and do it slowly
Four to five days	Boyne Valley, then Kilkenny, then Waterford	Move base once or twice, drive after breakfast
A week	Boyne Valley, Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny	One base per two nights, with a rest morning in the middle

A few habits make the route work:

• Drive after breakfast, not before it. Arrive in the next town in time for lunch and you can look at the market, the harbour or the high street before choosing.
• Book dinner on the nights you stay and keep lunch free. Lunch is the meal you can change on the day.
• Allow a slow morning. A castle, a monument or a greenway ride makes a good morning, and it earns the long lunch that follows.
• Check hours before a long drive. Small places in small towns close on the day you wanted them, so look at the opening times on the place's page the evening before.

If you only have a week for the whole country, our 7-day food itinerary for Ireland shows where this south east and Boyne loop could fit.

What should you eat in the Boyne Valley?

Eat what the land around the river grows and what the farms make. Meath's agricultural plains run along the Boyne, and the county is largely rural, so the sensible thing to order is whatever is local and in season on the menu: meat, dairy, vegetables, bread, honey and, in the autumn, whatever is being harvested. Ask the person serving what comes from nearby; in a small town they usually know.

Three kinds of meal suit the valley:

• A farm-led lunch after a morning at the monuments. A plate of local meat or a vegetable-led dish with good bread is enough.
• A tea and cake stop in a market town, which is a good way to see a high street without committing to a full meal.
• A proper dinner in your base town, booked ahead, because a valley with a World Heritage Site attracts visitors who all want a table at the same hour.

Brú na Bóinne, the World Heritage complex that includes Newgrange, is reached through its visitor centre and by guided tour only, so check the arrangements for a tour first and plan the meal around the time you are given. A tour slot is the one fixed point of a Boyne day, so build lunch before or after it, not in the middle.

Drogheda, on the lower Boyne, is a port town with a long history of distilling and brewing, and drink is still made there, so it is worth asking what is local when you order. If you are driving, one person should be the driver, so share the tasting.

What should you eat in Wexford?

Eat seafood and fruit from the soil and sea. County Wexford has high-quality soils suited to a wide range of agriculture, and its coast has working fishing harbours. The town of Wexford sits on a harbour at the mouth of the Slaney, and the village of Kilmore Quay is a fishing village that holds a seafood festival in the summer, with seafood served every day. Check the organiser's page for this year's dates before you plan around it.

Good orders in Wexford are:

• Whatever the boats landed, in the fishing villages: ask what came in that day rather than choosing from the menu alone.
• Seasonal fruit and vegetables from the farms and shops in summer and early autumn, which is the time to stop at a roadside stall or market.
• A harbour lunch, because a plate of fish near the water is a good reason for a slow stop.

Wexford is also known for an opera festival held in October. It is not a food festival, but it fills the town's beds and tables, so if you travel then, book dinner well ahead. Hook Head, on the Hook peninsula, has a lighthouse you visit by guided tour, which makes an easy morning before a lunch stop.

What should you eat in Waterford?

Start with the blaa. It is a doughy white bread roll particularly associated with Waterford, made in County Waterford and south Kilkenny, with white flour shaken over it before baking, and it has protected geographical indication status. It is eaten mainly at breakfast with butter, and the breakfast blaa, with egg, rasher and sausage, is a common order in Waterford. It is worth planning your first morning around.

Discover Ireland describes County Waterford as a county where food flourishes, and its Taste Waterford page offers a self-guided coastal taste trail, where you visit local food and drink producers along the way, plus guided food and drink tours in Waterford city and Dungarvan. If you like having a guide, a guided food tour is a good first-afternoon activity because it shows you where people eat before you choose for yourself.

The Waterford Greenway is a walking and cycling route on a former railway line, linking the city with towns including Dungarvan. A morning on the greenway followed by a harbour-town lunch in Dungarvan is an easy day. For a fuller plan, our guide to a weekend of eating in Waterford explains how to pace meals in the city.

Where do Kilkenny and Carlow fit?

Kilkenny is the natural link between the Boyne and the south-east coast: it sits inland, in the Historic Heartland, on the way between the two. It is a medieval city with a castle, a cathedral and narrow lanes, so it is a city to walk, and walking is how you find lunch. Plan an afternoon on foot with a coffee stop and a longer evening meal.

Our self-guided food trail through Kilkenny shows how to pace a day in the city, and the guide to the Savour Kilkenny food festival helps if your visit coincides with it. Check the organiser's page for the festival's dates before you build a trip around it.

Carlow is Kilkenny's neighbour. Treat it as a stop on the way to the coast: a coffee, a walk and a look along the high street.

How do you book a table on a busy weekend?

Book dinner first and book it early. A town with a festival, a match, a wedding or a sunny bank holiday has fewer free tables than its size suggests, and small kitchens have only so many seats.

Use the same order every time:

1. Fix the nights you will sleep in each town, then book dinner for the night you most want a good meal.
2. Ask for a group booking if you are more than a handful, and say the number you expect.
3. Read the deposit terms before you pay: the cancellation window, and what you get back if you cancel.
4. Set a cancellation alert for the night you could not get, because tables come back when plans change.
5. Keep one lunch unbooked in every town, so the day has room.

On Mosey, where a place takes bookings, you can see free times and book a table, and a place that asks for a deposit shows the amount and its cancellation terms before you confirm. If the table you want is full, you can join the waitlist or set a cancellation alert for the day, time and number, and you are told when a match appears. Our reservations feature page explains how bookings, deposits and alerts work. If you are travelling with friends, the organiser can split a deposit between invited friends who are on Mosey.

If the place you want is not taking bookings, ask about a walk-in queue, or choose a different time. Lunch on a weekday is often easier than dinner on a Saturday.

When should you go for Ireland's Ancient East food?

Spring and autumn suit a food trip best. In spring the countryside is green and the roads are quieter than in summer. In autumn the fields are being harvested and a lot of the summer crowd has gone, so a long lunch is easier to find. Outside summer, small places in small towns can keep shorter hours, so check before you drive. Summer is busy, with a seafood festival in Kilmore Quay and plenty of visitors at the monuments, so book earlier and expect fuller tables.

October brings the opera festival to Wexford, so a Wexford night then is harder to book. Whenever you go, check the organiser's page for this year's dates before you fix a trip around any festival. On Mosey, events and tickets for places that sell them appear on the place's page, so you can see what is on near your dates.

How do you keep the whole route in one place?

Use a list and your ratings. When you eat a dish you liked, rate it on Mosey by the dish, add a tag such as Family Friendly, Celebration or Outdoor seating, and tag the friends who were at the table so they can add their own rating. Dishes you rate stay in your history, so a blaa in Waterford and a harbour lunch in Wexford are both there when a friend asks where to eat.

Put your shortlist in a list and send each friend their own invite link: a link works once, for one person. A friend can add a place even before they have the app, which helps when four people are planning one weekend. If someone in the car has an allergy, the Hide dishes that list filter hides dishes that declare the allergens you choose. A dish with nothing listed means allergens are not listed, not that it is safe, so still ask the place.

Mosey Travel's town and city hubs collect the places people have rated there, and your food passport stamps the country, town and neighbourhood where you rated. Rated places also count towards the counties badge, which levels at five, ten, sixteen and thirty-two counties, so Louth, Meath, Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny all add to it. If you want to share what you found, the open Top 3 travel question about the towns you have been to for food lets you name up to three, ranked, and open answers add up to public travel lists.

Many of the stops in this guide are small towns, so a quick look at recent ratings and the dishes people photograph tells you more than a star count. A place with few ratings is unmeasured, not bad.

Food trails with stamps, where there is one, give a route a shape: see how food trails work. For other regions and itineraries, browse the guides, and the ranked lists show where people rate highly.