Too much on the first day, particularly if you are flying trans-atlantic. FYI, we visited Inishmore and it took the entire day.

I'm sure others can chime in with more suggestions and comments.

Photos from our trip here:

http://ukfrey.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/ireland.html

First things first - have you bought plane tickets? I think it would be easier to do your trip in reverse, since you don't have to drive in Dublin. Assuming you're coming from North America, as most posters here are, driving as much as you mentioned on your first day is not a good idea; you'll be very tired at best and a little prone to disorientation at worst, depending on how you handle jet lag. Throw in driving on the opposite side of the road and that's asking for trouble. If you can't flip your trip around, I'd get to one place close to Shannon (maybe Doolin, and see the Cliffs of Moher that day) and explore mostly on foot the rest of the day, or at absolute minimum, plan lots of rest stops and time to walk around into your drive.

I haven't been to the Arans, but everything I've read agrees with indy_dad that it's a full day trip.

The main road between Killarney and Kenmare is part of the ROK, so you'll definitely see it. It's a lovely drive, but yes, I did prefer the Slea Head drive on Dingle Peninsula, so I think that's a good choice! We really enjoyed hiking the Gap of Dunloe as well (it's not a hard hike, just fairly long, but it's all paved). I haven't been to Skellig Michael so I'm afraid I'm not much help there. I think you want at minimum one full day (two nights) in Dingle, and the same in Killarney or Kenmare to do either the Gap or Skellig Michael.

If it helps, here's the basic itinerary for my trip five years ago.

Day 1: fly into Kerry airport late afternoon (from London - this was the end of a two-week trip), stay in Killarney. I'd agree with those who say to stay in Kenmare.
Day 2: Gap of Dunloe "tour" (a van dropped us off at one entrance, then we met some motorboats to cross the lakes, and they picked us up and took us back to town)
Day 3: Drive to Kenmare to see the town, then up to Dingle; explore Dingle town
Day 4: Drive the Slea Head loop around Dingle Peninsula (we used Rick Steves's book for this - people tend to hate him around here, but on this particular point he was very helpful!)
Day 5: Drive to Ennis, explore the town a bit
Day 6: Drive to Cliffs of Moher, then back to Ennis via the Burren
Day 7: Fly home from Shannon

We didn't try to add Dublin or Kilkenny, and that was already a fairly fast clip. We probably could have seen the Cliffs on Day 5 and spent most of day 6 in Galway, though it would have been a lot of driving (and I wouldn't stay in Galway the night before flying out of SNN, so it would have been a one-nighter).

Whatever you end up doing, you'll have a great trip - Ireland is so beautiful!

Forget Connemara. My favourite part of Ireland but too much for your trip.

Arrive Shannon Early aim for the M18 to Galway, drop your bags park your car and have a walk round. spot of brunch. Afternoon maybe a trip on the Corrib Princess up the river into Logh Corrib or a couple of hours sleep. evening out and early bedtime.

Day 2 Aim for Doolin. There is a 12 noon sailing to Inis Oirr the smallest of the Aran isles. You can have a few hours out there and do the minicruise under the Cliffs of Moher on the way back. Overnight in Ennis after pub grub and music in Brogans, the Old Ground or other option.

Day 3 Dingle compulsory for all followers of Rick Steves. spend the night

Day 4, 5, Killarney or Kenmare

Day 6 consider spending the night in Cahir or Cashel and drive Kilkenny on the way into Dublin early on Day 7.

7 (afternoon) 8, Dublin

Thank you all for your input. We were thinking about skipping Connemara, now i'm still stuck on the best way to go about kerry! Definitely will do Dingle the one night but then we want to do too much!

A few ideas:

1. No time for Inishmore on Day 1. We've done this trip and it takes at least a full day. An overnight stay (as we did) is even better.

2. Don't plan your trip around going to Skellig Michael. The trips are weather dependent, and according to what our B&B host near Portmagee told us, they only go out an average of 3 days a week. When we were there (May 2011), the seas were so rough that they had not gone out for 3 weeks. They did not go out while we were there either, but we had a backup plan for sightseeing.

3. If your purpose for driving the ROK is for the scenery, I'd skip it and drive the Ring of Beara instead, which is easily accessible from Kenmare. We drove both the ROK and Ring of Beara and found the scenery and views on Beara much superior.

I would suggest you go to Kerry (Tralee/Dingle/ROK etc) first not Galway, then head West to Galway etc - Kilkenny - Dublin. If you have never been to Ireland before, let me assure you that it is much smaller than you realise and outside of Dublin, the scenery everywhere will be stunning. Dont get too tied down on big name tourist attractions. Get your hire care, head towards Kerry first and see where the road takes you. As suggested above, go easy on the driving on the first day. Galway is a nice place but very very busy and not a great place to be driving around. If you need any additional info, feel free to contact me @ aidan@epop.ie

Just a thought