emmbee,

Welcome to the forum! I see that you need a bit of help with your itinerary. If the goal of the trip is to drive like mad all over the island then you have chosen a good itinerary. If you would rather have a more relaxing trip and want to enjoy seeing things in Ireland, you need to heed your brother's advice and go back to the drawing board.

You have 8 nights and are flying into and out of Shannon. Yet you spending three nights in Dublin and wasting a whole day getting there and another whole day going back to the west coast. To me that does not make sense. You say you won't see Antrim on this trip. I think your husband needs to decide that he will not see Dublin on this trip. Save both for another trip when you have more time.

Let your already booked flights determine part of your itinerary. Stick to the west. Make a list of what you want to see in order of importance. Use the AA distance website to see how long driving around Ireland might actually take: http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/routes/ Keep in mind that the times there are optimistic and it will actually take longer.

Remember, you cannot see it all. Even if you had two months you couldn't see everything. Determine to enjoy what you can see and carefully select those sites.

It will be a much better trip by revising your itinerary. Get busy on another plan.

Michele