Ireland Advice
 

Hello,
My family of five with three teenagers will be visiting Ireland this June for the first time for about a week. We fly in and out of Dublin and have tentatively reserved the following itinerary :
Drive from Dublin airport to Mountrath - one night stay
Drive to Dingle - stay 2 nights
Drive to Lahinch - stay 1 night
Drive to Galway - stay 2 nights
Drive back to Dublin - stay 3 nights

Wondering if there is any advice as to towns or places to visit between Mountrath and Dingle ? And also between Dingle and Lahinch?
Are either Limerick or Cork worth seeing ?
Also any advice for tours or sight seeing ? We will have a car ; is it therefore worth booking a tour or is it better to just drive and see the attractions like the Cliffs of Moher by ourselves ?
Thanks in advance for any advice!

Between Mountrath and Dingle, swing by Kilkenny for its castle. And between Dingle and Lahinch, consider the Cliffs of Moher or Killarney National Park.

Limerick has King John's Castle, Cork has the English Market and Cobh. Worth it if you're keen, but it's a detour from your route.

Driving solo to the Cliffs of Moher is doable, but a guided tour offers insights. Your call on that!

Enjoy Ireland!

Your thread has been moved to the Europe Forum and tagged for Ireland

Drive from the airport....

are you crossing the pond, if so

please don't

It looks really nice

Thank you MarySmith for the advice - I think I will definitely stop at Kilkenny on the way down and take your advice and book a tour for the Cliffs

Thanks everyone!

bilbo makes a good point. If you are flying long haul please don't drive on arrival. It is the equivalent of driving while drunk. Add to that driving on the "wrong" side of the road in a strange car and you become a liability to yourself and every other road user. Yes it is only an hour or so drive but please think about this.

If this is a long haul flight please DO NOT drive on your arrival day :( Terrible idea. Its not just the jet lag, but also micro sleeps, unfamiliar road signs and rules of the road, being on the 'wrong side of the road', etc.. Just a bad idea. Spend the first couple of nights in Dublin car-less then do your loop tour ending up somewhere like maybe Athlone - - or depending on the time of your flight out, maybe at a DUB hotel.

Meant to add -- at best DUB to Mountrath is close to a 2 hour drive and adding in arrival formalities, waiting for luggage, getting the rental car and so forth you are talking at least 3 hours from arrival . . .

That's good advice re: driving . Will have to pivot and take a look at that issue. Thanks!

I'm from Ireland but I visited Kerry with friends from the US. I had never been there before and I did all the driving. It was honestly a huge mistake. The sights around the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula are breathtaking and I missed most of it being behind the wheel, plus I was exhausted by the end of the day. If I had to do it again, I would absolutely book a tour and let someone else deal with the driving. Sit back and enjoy your holiday!

My husband drove the one hour at the most drive from Dublin Airport to Kilkenny. We spent the night there, but he also sleeps really well on planes. Kilkenny is a cute town. We loved Killarney and we did go to the National park. Between Kilkenny and Killarney we stopped twice, once was the Swiss Cottage. It was interesting. The other was the Rock of Cashel which was also interesting.
Dingle is way out there driving wise. We enjoyed our visit, but we liked staying in Killarney. We also did cliffs of moher on our own and slept in Ennis.

In Dublin, we enjoyed the Guinness tour and had really great beef stew in their cafeteria. We rode the hop on hop off bus all around town. I recommend the Jail tour and also the Book of Kells at Trinity college. We did a whiskey tour and I don't drink whiskey, but they made me a very tasty whiskey cocktail which could be dangerous to have more! LOL

Having your own car is great, but definitely get the GPS. Also get an automatic. My husband can drive a manual car, but driving a manual car on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car would have been crazy. The smaller the car, the better. The roads are very narrow in the smaller towns and I spent most of the time in the passenger seat yelling, tree, ditch, wall to make sure my husband didn't hit anything. He did great driving. Get the insurance!!! Most insurance companies will NOT cover you while driving in Ireland. We did not have any mishaps, but friends have lost mirrors and popped tires riding too close to the edge of the road. Don't drive at night. When the sun goes down, go back to the hotel and town. Not a lot of street lights. The GPS once took us for a short cut from the Ring of Kerry back to Killarney and if we were driving at night, we might have hit a sheep. We were behind people's farms on country roads. We vowed to never drive past dark.

The views from all of the coast are quite beautiful. The people are very friendly and helpful. We met many really wonderful Irish people and some real characters. I don't how old your teens are, but go to a pub that has Trad Music and sing along all the Irish songs. It's a lot of fun and they don't have to drink to enjoy it. Everyone sings.

Try a Dingle Gin and tonic! Dingle gin won all kinds of European awards for best Gin.
You can click on my name and scroll down. I have an Ireland trip report from October 2019.

If you're planning to get to the west coast for the Cliffs of Moher, it's worth the trip. We stayed in Doolin for a couple of nights and absolutely LOVED it. Daly's House B&B was the best lodging of our 11 days thru southern Ireland. Susan Daly & her family were so welcoming, the location was great and the breakfasts, oh the breakfasts!
Daly's House B&B

We also took a ferry over to Inis Mor and did a pony & trap tour around the island. Thomas regaled us with stories of the history of the Aran Islands. This was our only rainy day of our trip, but it was still so much fun. We then took the longer ferry back & got to see the Cliffs from below as well.
Thomas Faherty Tours

If you plan to do the Ring of Kerry, I HIGHLY recommend doing a van tour. It was worth every penny. We had a group of 6, so we got a private tour. Peter, the tour guide, was exceptional. He drove us around for NINE HOURS! I say "van tour" because there are areas that those big buses just can't get to, tho that doesn't sometimes stop them from trying. (See photo - wow, so sorry it's so huge!)
Ring of Kerry Tour w/Peter Stanley

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you have an amazing adventure! Slainte!


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HawaiiVirgin: The OP's trip was back in June.

Oh geez, I saw the date of the post was June, so I figured the trip was months away. That's a short-notice trip. Guess I should read better. Thanks.

No prob -- The photo is priceless :)

HI Girl on the go, where did you stay in Ennis? I'm intrigued by what Ive heard about Ennis and music.

lauramsgarden : The Old Ground Hotel in Ennis