Kilmainham and the IMMA
The Royal Hospital's formal gardens, the modern-art museum inside it, the Gaol, and the war memorial by the Liffey. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Royal Hospital Kilmainham
The grandest 17th-century building in Ireland — a 1684 home for old soldiers, modelled on Les Invalides, built around a vast arcaded courtyard. Walk into the quadrangle first; it's the single best piece of classical architecture in the city and most people miss it entirely.

2. Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
The Royal Hospital is now IMMA — Ireland's national collection of modern and contemporary art, in galleries off the old courtyard. Free, ambitious, and rarely crowded. You don't need to know the artists; just go in and let the rooms do the work.

3. The Formal Gardens
The restored 17th-century formal gardens drop down the north side — clipped box, gravel walks, and a view back at the building's long façade. Almost nobody comes round here. Sit on the terrace wall; it's the quietest spot on the whole walk.

4. Kilmainham Gaol
West along the road, the prison where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were held and executed — the most charged place in modern Irish history. Tours are guided and book out; even the limestone exterior and the courtyard are worth the walk. Sober, essential.

5. Irish National War Memorial Gardens
Down by the Liffey at Islandbridge, Lutyens' great memorial to the Irish dead of the First World War — sunken rose gardens, granite bookrooms, and fountains, laid out 1930s. Long overlooked, beautifully kept. The riverside setting is the reward for the walk down.

6. The Liffey path back to Heuston
Follow the river east along the quiet south bank toward Heuston station, the great 1846 railway terminus by Sancton Wood. A flat, calm finish with the water on your left. The Luas Red Line at Heuston takes you back into town.

Kilmainham and the IMMA