On the road to Cork

I've got Patrick Cassidy from County Kilkenny on the line. He's looking for a foster mother for an orphaned foal." As the car nosed down the ferry gangplank at Rosslare harbour, the radio auto-tuned itself, ready to accompany a five-day drive around south-east Ireland.

Wexford, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford: the names didn't conjure up the thrill of an exotic fly-drive, but this year something closer to home appealed. And who can claim not to be curious about Ireland's much-vaunted morph from sleepy leprechaun to sleek Celtic tiger? Patrick's tale of equine woe, however, hinted at a gentler reality.

A night at Wexford's tobaccostained The Sky and the Ground bar confirmed that change wasn't on every agenda. Customers may have paid for their Guinnesses by airily slapping a couple of Euros on to the oak counter, but a septuagenarian band of accordion, banjo and fiddle players charmed them into its familiar world of lonely prison walls and slyly lifted petticoats with equal ease.

And the town's comfortable Talbot Hotel was, like the others on the trip, friendly rather than fashionable, filled with laid-back Irish holidaymakers who unfailingly strolled en masse into breakfast for a black-pudding fry-up five minutes before serving ended.

Back on the wide, smooth, EUfunded highway that undulates towards Cork, clouds spiralled up like tornados from gorse-dissected farmland. "I have to sing this operatic number for the community drama tonight, but the only words I know are, 'Your tiny hand is frozen'." Margaret from County Cork sounded frazzled. The DJ issued a plea for help.

As the mauve Comeragh Mountains eased into sight, an opera singer dialled in to coach Margaret through Puccini's elusive verse. A purple-coated racehorse, rubbing its nose against a sunwarmed gatepost, pricked up puzzled ears as their duet drifted out of the window. By way of exchange, an aroma of purest pig wafted from countryside to car.

Time to swing left on to the South East Coastal Drive, a network of narrow lanes that link the Celtic Sea's unspoilt sandy coves and film-set villages, each seemingly with a near-faultless seafood restaurant. "Lovely day," called drivers as they slowed down to muse over signposts that were sometimes in kilometres, sometimes in miles, or unmarked tracks that dipped down to a frothy, translucent sea with emerald seaweed swirling in its waves.

A tall hedge shielded Woodstown Strand, where Jackie Kennedy found peace after JFK's assassination (the Kennedy homestead is a half hour's drive away). Now, appropriately, chic women in white jeans and bodywarmers power-walked along the dazzling strip of sand - maybe working off coquilles St-Jacques and tomato risotto from The Ship pub, tucked among the clipped lawns and whitewashed cottages of nearby Dunmore East.

At Tramore Strand - turn left at a fishermen-friendly sign marked "flounder, bass, mullet" - Dubliners played beach football among the sea holly and wild thyme in front of an indifferent crowd of cormorants.

As the mint, salmon and primrose-painted houses of Dungarvan harbour came into sight, Claire from Bray was recalling a high-street encounter with Seventies rockstar Phil Lynott: "He was glittering and magnificent, and he made sure he spelled my name right on my autograph." Equally magnificent were chillied and mangoed scallops in the tiny restaurant above Bridie Dee's pub - newly opened by young local chefs Eoin and Liam, who leaned through the serving hatch to send over free whiskeyand cream-laden coffees.

Further west, Ireland told older stories: a famine graveyard just north of Dungarvan was eloquent in its silence. The heritage centre at the port of Cobh, last stopping point of the Titanic, displayed the tantalising advertisements that lured its victims to their deaths.

And in Cork's An Spailpin Fanach pub, storytellers spun yarns of vengeful dragons and wily kings. Teenagers in Aran sweaters sat spellbound, their pints of Murphy's untouched, and half the audience seemed ready to spring up and tell a story of their own.

Way to go

Jane Hayward travelled to Ireland with Irish Ferries (08705 171717; www.irishferries.com).

A five-night break staying at three-star hotels in Waterford, Cork, Kilkenny and Wexford costs £293pp B&B in June, including ferry crossing from Pembroke. For further information contact Tourism Ireland (0800 0397000; www.irelandtravel.co.uk).