7 Days in Ireland-Are we doing too much?
 

My wife and I are putting a weeklong trip to Ireland at the tail end of an upcoming business trip in Europe. We're there from May 22 to May 29 when we leave from Dublin. I know this is a really short period of time and there is a ton to see so we've limited ourselves to the following sights:

Dingle (instead of Ring of Kerry)
Cliffs of Moher
Rock of Cashel
Dublin

We still are concerned that we're trying to do too much and will end up spending too much time in the car. Here's the itinerary we have:

Day 1: We were thinking of flying into Cork and picking up a car and driving either all the way to Dingle or perhaps to Killarney for the night.

Day 2: Dingle Peninnsula.

Day 3: Possibly try and go to Skellig Michael or perhaps see some more sights in the Dingle area.

Day 4: Drive to Cliffs of Moher and spend the night in Doolin or another town nearby

Day 5: Drive to Rock of Cashel and spend the night in the area

Day 6: Drive to Dublin

Day 7: Dublin

Day 8: leave

My concern is whether we are spending too much time driving from place to place. One thought is to cut out Cliffs of Moher and to spend the extra day in a place like Killarney (without necessarily doing the full ring of Kerry) or perhaps in the central area around Cashel. Or we could just add another day in London. Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Overall, I don't think you are trying to do too much, but there is one impracticable element in your programme: there is no boat service from Dingle to Scellig Michael. To try to get there from Dingle is a lot of trouble -- a long drive at each end of the trip.

Personally, I don't rate the town of Cashel particularly highly. But it's okay for an overnight.

Thanks. I was thinking that we'd have enough time to drive to Portmagee and hop on the ferry to Skellig but it sounds like that is not practical.

An alternative I guess would be to fly into Shannon and head up to Doolin and then down to Dingle and then across to Cashel and Dublin.

pfod wrote: "An alternative I guess would be to fly into Shannon and head up to Doolin and then down to Dingle and then across to Cashel and Dublin."

I think that would make a much better route.

The Cliffs of Moher are amazing. I wouldn't cut them out unless you absolutely have to. They're one of my favorite memories of Ireland.

Thanks. I'm pretty excited about the Cliffs of Moher and really don't want to cut them out. My one question is that if we fly into Shannon and then go to Moher followed by Dingle, Cashel, and Dublin, is there a good way to break up the Dingle-Cashel-Dublin leg? In other words, is there a good town near Rock of Cashel so we could leave Dingle in the morning, see Rock of Cashel, and then have a place relatively close by so we wouldn't have to drive all the way to Dublin. Otherwise we end up with more than 5 hours of driving in the day we visit Rock of Cashel. Thanks.

You could continue on to Kilkenny (about an hour or so from Cashel) -- very nice castle, two cathedrals, good restaurants, etc. Then you could go to Dublin the next day via either Kildare (Irish stud + Japanese gardens) or Glendalough.

Kilkenny sounds like a great idea. Thanks!