Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - logistic and tour help

We have 16 days in Ireland in May. We are flying business class frequent flier tickets so the dates are set and I hope we will be able to get 4 hours of sleep and not be a complete zombie when we arrive. We have never been to Ireland but we have driven in England on a few vacations -- although several years ago. We arrive on Wednesday the 16th early morning in Shannon and depart on Friday June 1. We would like to go to the Southwest, the West, Donegal and Antrim. We have also found that we get a lot out of local guides and have thought about doing an area or two with a small organized walking tour. The options for this are as follows:

The first one is a week in Kerry. This one has about 4-5 miles a day of walking and lots of cultural things such as a jaunting car ride and water divining and whiskey tasting and bodhran drums playing -- it sounds very interesting and starts Saturday evening in Killarney. We would have from when we arrive on Wednesday to Saturday evening to spend in another region. I thought about Galway and Claire and Mayo but that did not seem enough time. So I thought about continuing on to Dublin -- taking a flight -- they have one about noon -- and picking up a car there. Perhaps going up to Newgrange for that afternoon. On Thursday we could go up to Antrim and spend Friday there. Saturday we could drive back to Dublin and fly to Kerry to be picked up for the tour. That would get us The North. We would not do Donegal but when the tour ended the following Saturday, we could pick up a car and go to Galway and Claire and Mayo -- we would have Saturday - Wednesday for that- 5 days. Thursday we would go to Dublin ffom wherever we were as we would fly out on Friday morning.

Another option I found was a tour that does Antrim and Donegal for the same time. In this option, we would have Wednesday - Saturday in the Southwest -- Killarney or Dingle etc. Then we sould have to fly to Dublin to pick up a car to drive to Belfast or where the tour starts.(It is very expensive to fly to Belfast) We would spend the time in the North and then Donegal on this tour. This sounds very beautiful and interesting. We would do two areas in this week. When it ends on Saturday, we would continue from Donegal to Mayo, Galway and Claire until Wednesday.

The third option is do do a mini-break in Kerry. We arrive on Wednesday morning. This starts Thursday evening in Killarney and we are finished Monday morning. So Wednesday and Thursday we could do Claire, then do this tour and then head for Galway and Mayo. As much as I would like to see Donegal, I think there would not be enough time to do that and the Antrim coast. We would have 11 days and have to be by Dublin that evening. Possoble go to Clifden for 3 nights, Westport for 3, and Antrim for 3-- figure out either 2 nights near Dublin or another night in one of the above.

There are so many places to see and options that I am having difficulty trying to come up with a plan so any feedback is appreciated.

If you want to see the tours, one company is www.govisitireland.com -- they have the two kerry tours -- and the other is www.walktalkireland.com -- he just does antrim and donegal. His dates for 2007 are not yet set so I am waiting on that -- if he does not have one the only week we can do it, then the decision is between the week in Kerry or the mini-break.