Take a holiday in Ireland and you’ll find that you’re never far from water. Any thorough tour of Dublin will criss-cross the slow-moving River Liffey repeatedly, and many of those who head out west traverse a stretch of the 1,600-mile Wild Atlantic Way – the world’s longest defined coastal driving route, extending from the highlands of Donegal to the pastures of Cork.
Even in the Emerald Isle’s dewy heartlands, the fields are pockmarked by lakes and cut by surging rivers.