Most driving in Ireland is a chore. The M50 at half five. The school run in the rain. A forty-minute crawl through roadworks for the privilege of reaching a Supermac's.

But then there's the other kind. The kind where the road opens up, the hedgerows drop away, and you remember that this small, damp, ridiculous island is one of the most beautiful places on earth to drive through. These are eight of those drives.

1. Dublin to Kilkenny

An hour and a half down the M9. Easy. The motorway does its job and gets out of the way, which is exactly what you want. Kilkenny is the destination, not the road.

The castle dominates the town centre, 12th-century Norman stone that's been fought over, burned, rebuilt, and handed to the state for the princely sum of fifty quid in 1967. St Canice's Cathedral sits at the other end of the medieval mile, and if you've the legs for it, the Round Tower beside it gives you the kind of view that makes you forgive the climb.

Good coffee. Good pubs. Streets that were old when America was a rumour. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

2. Dublin to Portlaoise

Only 87 km, and nobody's idea of a glamorous destination. Which is exactly why it works. This isn't a drive you take for the bragging rights. It's a drive you take to breathe.

County Kildare rolls past in shades of green that would embarrass a paint chart. Then you're into Laois. Quieter, less polished, and better for it. The Slieve Bloom Mountains won't make anyone's Instagram highlights, but they'll make your shoulders drop about three inches.

If you've time, detour to the Rock of Dunamase. A ruined fortress on a limestone outcrop, doing absolutely nothing except looking magnificent against the sky. Nobody's queuing for it. Nobody's charging you in. Just you and a thousand years of weather.

3. The Burren

The Burren looks like the moon with better PR. Bare limestone stretching to the Atlantic, cracked and grey and somehow full of wildflowers that have no business growing there. Arctic and Mediterranean plants side by side, botanists still arguing about why.

It's a UNESCO Global Geopark now, which is a fancy way of saying the rocks are important. Drive the loop slowly. Stop often. The landscape changes every few hundred metres in ways that don't photograph well but stick in your head for years.

Ennis is nearby for food and fuel. The town does a good lunch. The Burren does everything else.

4. Connemara

Connemara is the drive people mean when they say "the west." From Galway, head for Clifden and take the coast road. Don't rush it.

The granite comes in every shade of grey. Loughs appear around corners like they've been waiting for you. The bogs are bronze and copper in the right light, and in the wrong light they're still more interesting than anything you'll see on the N7. The Ceardlann Craft Village outside Spiddal is worth a stop. Actual craft, not tourist tat.

Fair warning: the roads are narrow in places, the sheep have no concept of right of way, and the weather will change three times before lunch. That's the deal. Take it or leave it.

5. Wexford to Waterford

A short drive with one world-class stop. Hook Lighthouse has been guiding ships since the early 13th century. The oldest intact operational lighthouse on the planet. Eight hundred years of light on the same headland. Let that settle for a moment.

The coastal stretch between the two counties is quiet, green, and largely ignored by the tour buses heading for Kerry. Which makes it yours.

6. The Boyne Valley

History is thick on the ground here. Newgrange. Knowth. The Hill of Tara. The Battle of the Boyne site. You could spend a week and still miss things.

The road loops through County Meath. The Royal County, they call it, and for once the name isn't overselling it. Green fields, the river winding through, and that particular quality of light that painters have been chasing in this valley for centuries.

Stop in Drogheda. Visit St Peter's Church. Oliver Plunkett's head has been preserved there since the 1920s, which is either deeply moving or deeply unsettling depending on your disposition. Probably both.

7. The Copper Coast

166 kilometres of coastal road between Dungarvan and Tramore, named for the 19th-century copper mines that dot the cliffs. It's a UNESCO Global Geopark. The rocks here tell a 460-million-year story, if you're the type to listen.

Bring a bike if you have one. The road is as good for cycling as driving, and the sea views are the kind you actually pull over for. Not many tourists. Not many people at all, some days. Just the road, the cliffs, and the Atlantic doing its thing.

8. The Comeraghs

This one takes commitment. 240 km through Cashel, over the Vee Pass, and around the Comeragh Mountains. Three days if you want to do it properly. You could rush it in one, but you'd be missing the point.

The Rock of Cashel is the obvious highlight. A medieval fortress-cathedral on a hilltop that looks like someone built it specifically to end arguments about Ireland being beautiful. Fethard is a walled town that time forgot, in the good way. The Vee Pass opens up views of the Suir Valley that will make you pull over whether you planned to or not.

And the Comeraghs themselves, caught in the right sunset, are the kind of sight that makes you wonder why you ever drive anywhere else.

The point

Eight routes. None of them require a passport, a plane ticket, or more than a tank of petrol. All of them are better than the M50 at half five.

That's the thing about driving in Ireland. Most days it's a means of getting somewhere. But every now and then, the road itself is the somewhere. These are those roads.