We will arrive at Dublin airport 7:30ish on Sat. Aug. 31 from USA for a 15-day trip not including flight days. Will pick up car (automatic) and head north. Ideally we'd like to stop in Newgrange for a couple of hours and then spend our first night in the Ballycastle area. Checking various sites, though, it appears that it will take about 4 hours from Dublin airport to Ballycastle (we will bypass Belfast). Is that reasonable? (I'm thinking we could run out of steam by mid afternoon.) Would it make more sense if we spent our first night in Newgrange, Carlingford or Portaferry? If so, which town would you suggest? Thank you, and I will be back with more questions as I develop our itinerary (which will probably wind up in the SW and then hopefully up to Shannon airport).

>>I'm thinking we could run out of steam by mid afternoon<<

It is very likely you will run out of steam at DUB. Driving after an overnight flight/jet lagged is not a great idea. I'd spend a night car-less in or very near Dublin and start your driving tour the next day.

Agree with Janis.. Even with an automatic you will have to deal with driving "on the wrong side of the road"..Stress you don't need on arrival. Stay in Dublin and do the hop on hop off for an overview..Eat, relax and pick up the car next day. I'm pretty sure Newgrange requires reservations as they only allow a certain # of people in per day..Check it out before you go.Maybe 1st night in Newgrange or there abouts but I don't know the towns. We stayed in Ballymascallon @ a lovely Best Western but it was really hard to find..Worth it however!!!

Thank you. Good info to think about. I guess we'd better rethink going much farther than Dublin that first day. BTW, I couldn't find this first post so made another one a short while ago.

I just found this great website:
http://www.distancesfrom.com/ie/dire...toryID=3205649

If you can't open my link then put www.distancesfrom.com
in your browser.

You can put in the places you want to start/end and it will calculate for you. Dublin --> Newgrange: 42 Minutes
Newgrange --> Ballycastle: 142 Minutes - 2 hr.22 minutes

Of course this would just be an approximation of the time and would depend upon traffic, etc.

If you want to stop in Belfast, etc. add this into the calculator.

We stopped in Belfast last year for a one-day cruise port stop. We did a lovely tour from Belfast to Giants' Causeway, CarrickCarrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, and stopped in Ballycastle for a lunch stop at a lovely pub. We had a fantastic day and the scenery along the route was beautiful. There is much to see in Belfast as well. Belfast was one of our favorite cruise port stops.

http://www.discovernorthernireland.c...lycastle-P9823

The above link has some great info on it for you. Places to stay, tourist attractions, etc.

I am sure others will have information for you but thought the above websites had lots of great information for you.

Good luck. Enjoy your trip.

Thank you, Luv2travel. Most helpful website I've seen regarding time, distance and directions. Will definitely use this one.

I was going to post on that new thread how to locate all your posts - but now see you've figured out how.

But just in case - to find all your posts, click on your name.

Thanks janisj. I'm a little low-tech when it comes to some of these sites. Takes me a little bit to figure it out.

Think about Smarmore Castle Hotel for your first night. It is near Newgrange and you could "do" that first thing the second morning.
http://smarmorecastle.com .

My grandsons and I arrived about that time, motored out to Trim Castle and spent the night at Smarmore Castle.

Looks like a good option--close to Newgrange and lots of other things to do that first afternoon if we can stay awake! Thank you jaja.

We loved Monasterboice, very atmospheric

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/i.../monasterboice

wrenwood, some of us were asking how your Scotland trip went from two years ago in your old/huge thread.

I saw that, felt GUILTY

Right now I am working basically 7 days a week late March through late June (Landscape Design)

Have to lurk on Fodors a little bit to stay sane.

The Scotland trip was awesome, will try to respond, we did not go on that drive (never enough time) but we had an amazing time with many many places to tell Fodorites about.

LATER!

Monasterboice looks very interesting. I hope we can stop there.