Things to do in Waterford with kids

The old railway line from the city to Dungarvan, now a 46 km path with no cars on it, crossing eleven bridges and three viaducts and passing through one long tunnel. It opened in March 2017, fifty years to the day after the last passenger train ran the route, and it changed how Waterford families spend a Sunday.

Nobody does the whole thing with children. Pick a stretch. The Kilmeaden end passes Mount Congreve and the heritage railway, so one car park serves three days out; Kilmacthomas has the viaduct, the workhouse and a café. Bike-hire firms along the route rent child seats, trailers and tag-alongs.

Ireland's only purpose-built medieval museum, wrapped around two rooms that were already here: the 13th-century Choristers' Hall and the 15th-century Mayor's Wine Vault. Children go down into both. Upstairs are the treasures that give the museum group its name, among them the cloth-of-gold vestments the museum calls the Heavens' Embroidered Cloths, Henry VIII's Cap of Maintenance from 1536, and the Great Charter Roll of 1373 with the walled city drawn on it.

It is a serious museum that children under 16 get into free, which changes the arithmetic for a family: one adult ticket, and the rest is a rainy morning covered. No need to book unless you are a group.

A handmade replica Viking house standing in the ruins of a 13th-century friary, where you put on a headset and meet Reginald, who came back to Waterford in 917, built a fort and made himself king. The experience lasts 40 minutes and it is the one thing in the city an eight-year-old will describe to their class on Monday.

The age limit is firm. Bring a younger sibling and one adult will be waiting outside, so plan the Medieval Museum next door for them.

Ireland's oldest civic building, a Viking wooden fort rebuilt in stone by the Normans and in use ever since as a mint, an armoury and a prison. You climb it by the original spiral stair, past Viking finds and old weapons, to a 19th-century prison cell at the top. It takes half an hour and costs a family €13, which makes it the best-value history lesson in the south-east.

Seventy acres of woodland garden, a four-acre walled garden and 16 km of paths, with a Chinese pagoda, a rock waterfall and a Georgian glasshouse hidden along them. Three marked walks suit different legs: the Fragrant Walk takes 20 minutes and is wheelchair-accessible, the Walled Garden Walk 30, the Woodland Garden Walk 55. There are children's play areas and a café in the stables.

Children under 16 are free, so the cost of a family morning is one or two adult tickets. Picnics are not allowed; the café is the plan.

A narrow-gauge heritage train on the old Waterford to Dungarvan line, in open-sided carriages. The round trip is 12 km and takes 40 minutes at an average of 15 km/h, past the ruin of Kilmeadan Castle and the edge of Mount Congreve. On Saturdays it runs two kilometres further, through the Dan Donovan tunnel under the N25. Somewhere in the middle is the Magic Wood, where children are told to make a wish when they see the fairies.

The railway describes itself as perfect for young children, and it is: short, slow and open to the air. Older children like the tunnel.

Five kilometres of sand and dunes with a promenade and amusements at the town end, a Blue Flag again in 2026 and a Green Coast award beside it. The strand is wheelchair-accessible, and in the bathing season there are public toilets. It is the beach Waterford children grow up on.

Splashworld sits behind the prom for the day the weather turns: a wave pool, slides, Roaring Rapids and a toddler pool. The twin slides are for ages six and up. Sessions are 60 or 90 minutes and every swim must be booked in advance.

A working harbour with painted boats, sheltered coves and two named strands, Councillors and Lawlor's. The coastal walk to Portally Cove is 4 km there and back, an hour to an hour and a half with children, with Hook Lighthouse across the estuary, one of the oldest working lighthouses in the world. In summer the adventure centre floats an inflatable aqua park in the harbour for ages seven to seventy.

The River Mahon drops over sandstone cliffs on the south side of the Comeraghs, and a gravel path leads from the car park to the foot of it: 2.5 km there and back, about 40 minutes, flat enough that Visit Waterford calls it an easy family walk. The drive up the Comeragh Drive is the other half of the outing. On a clear day the whole coast opens below you.

The wet-day fallback: 25,000 square feet under one roof, with nine activities in it. A three-floor soft play with a toddler area runs in 90-minute sessions through the day, there are six bowling lanes with touch-screen consoles, a climbing wall for eight and over, and laser tag. It opened in 2014 and every Waterford birthday party has been here since.