A golf weekend in Dublin & the East

For anyone on the east coast this is the least-hassle great golf weekend going: four championship links within forty minutes of Dublin city, so you can play two of them across a Saturday and Sunday and sleep in your own bed. If you are coming from further afield, one night in Malahide or Portmarnock puts you beside the first tees. Either way, it is a lot of top-tier links golf for very little driving.

Portmarnock is the grandest of the Dublin links — a long, exposed championship course on a peninsula north of the city that staged its first Irish Open in 1927 and has hosted it nineteen times since, along with the 1991 Walker Cup. It is now in the frame to become the first ever Open venue outside Britain, which tells you the standard. There is nothing tricked-up about it: flat-ish, treeless, honest, and brutal when the wind gets up off the Irish Sea, with out-of-bounds and the beach never far from a loose one. Play it on a breezy day and you will understand why the best players rate it.

Across the estuary sits The Island, which for most of its life could only be reached by rowing boat from Malahide. It is a completely different experience to Portmarnock — a tight, thrilling links threaded through some of the tallest dunes on the east coast, with fairways so narrow in places you can almost touch both walls of marram. It has climbed the rankings hard over the last decade and is, for many visitors, the more memorable of the two. Pairing Portmarnock and The Island on the one weekend is the classic Dublin double.

For convenience, Royal Dublin is a short hop from the city centre on Bull Island — a fine old Harry Colt links, the home club of the great Christy O'Connor Snr, with a nervy finish along the estuary. If you have the time and want the better course, drive forty minutes north to County Louth (Baltray), a Tom Simpson design and home of the East of Ireland Championship — quieter, more natural and, plenty would argue, the best links in the whole region. For a cheaper round, St Anne's (about €65) shares Bull Island with Royal Dublin and is one of the best-value tee times in the capital.

If you do want a base, Malahide is the pick — a smart coastal village with good restaurants, minutes from Portmarnock and The Island. For the city and its nightlife, stay central in Dublin and drive out each morning against the commuter traffic. Our full Dublin & East Coast golf guide covers the region, and the planner will build the pairing around your dates.