March 8 - 18, 2012 Irish Trip
 

Hi
We were thinking of taking a driving trip to Ireland from 9/15-25/11 and the airfare was coming in at $950 apiece in 7/11 for the September dates for Chicago to Dublin and I thought that was too high for a flight of less than 8 hours, so I waited and the price is up to $1,250. My wife prefers non-stops, so we were looking at Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus is having a winter sale that would enable both of us to fly with dates of 3/8/12 and 3/18/12 for less than $1,300 total for both of us.
My question is, has anyone traveled to Ireland in early March? Would it save us time to fly into Dublin and out of Shannon?
Thanks for any input.

Into Dublin and out of Shannon would be a good plan. Couple days in Dublin, rent car and head West. With no need to loop back.

We were there in March and wore lined raincoats and sweaters but had a lotmofmsunny days too. We had a wonderful trip, no crowds and enjoyed the Patrick's Day parade in a small town. We flew into Shannon and out of Dublin which worked well, exploring the loop by rental car. We made few hotel reservations in advance and never had a problem finding a room.

It appears that Aer Lingus has no flights from Chicago to Shannon or vice versa in the winter, so I would have to fly in and out of Dublin. We probably would not spend too much time in Dublin. We spent 2 days in Dublin in 1976, but nowwhere else.

We decided to bite the bullet and are now going from Wed 9/28/11 to Sunday 10/9/11. I rented a car from economycarrentals.com for $236 for 10 days. This includes all insurance. It is a Citroen c2. Now all we have to is plan the trip.