Hi all!
Arrived home from our 15 day Northwest Ireland vacation at 4:00 AM Aug 22nd.  A very eventful trip....some not so good, but promise a full report asap.  Just a few quick remarks regarding some recent issues brought up on various threads:  The car rental went well (but have not had a chance to look at my credit card statement yet).  Had the Citibank World Mastercard with a letter from citibank declaring coverage, and no questions asked when I declined CDW.  Am anticipating a charge of $605.00 US for 15 days for a manual, 4 door, Kia "Picanto" .  Did get a scrape on the back bumper, filed a police report, and the rental company said they would take it up with Mastercard, so we'll see how World Mastercard handles that....more on that later.  We did 1700 K in 15 days, and never felt like we had driven too much in any one day.  But... do plan on 30 to 35 mph tops.  The roads of NW Ireland seemed more narrow, slow, lots of sheep and bikes etc.  It seemed like the extreme outside of the roads were rougher, but could be due to the small car vrs the midsize we had 3 years ago when visiting the south half of the island.
The biggest piece of advice that I might offer is buy trip insurance. During my internet research on 5 websights over the past 3 years, I recalled at least 3 different stories of people who needed medical help that ended up costing them multi-thousands. I purchased a half million dollar top limit policy with a $50,000 transport, about 30 hours before we left. (24 hours ahead or longer is required) We went to insuremytrip.com and had about 12-15 companies/plans to choose from. We went with Travelex, for $90.00 US for my wife and myself. It turned out to be a very good decision and I would NEVER EVER Consider traveling outside of the US again without purchasing insurance. To make a long story short, my wife fell on Achill Island and broke her arm about an inch below her shoulder. It happened on day 6, so the rest of our trip was quite a bit different than we had planned, but still got to do and see a lot of NW Ireland.
The medical situation in Ireland was, overall, good for us...we had advice from our B&B hostess to see a local general Physician first, ( this saved us lots of dollars) and then was referred to Mayo County Hospital In Castlebar for treatment. The initial treatment by the local Dr cost 55 Euro, and no further charges in Castlebar. If we had not seen the local Dr, but instead went directly to the E & A, it would have been 450 Euros to get in the door! The break was too high in the arm to cast, so with a sling and pain killers, we were out of emergency and accident by midnight after a 6 hour wait for treatment. You just never think it can happen to you...but you just can't take that chance. Our 1st thought was to return to the US immediately, but both Drs. talked us out of it, reason being that 2 long haul flights would be difficult at that time, and would be much easier on her and her healing bones 10 days later. We did have to return to Castlebar 2 more times for checkups and more x-rays, but the piece of mind to know that it was healing properly was well worth it. Will give you the details in a full trip report as I get time. Another piece of advice....wear proper shoes! She decided that perhaps she should have had shoes with more support and better tread. But it is always easy to 2nd guess yourself after an accident. Ironically, we had been on Croag Patrick the day before, I having gone all the way to the top, and she had gone nearly 1/2 way up.....and I thought that was the most dangerous part of our trip! Maybe we let our guard down after that....but a word of advice...there is often rocky uneven ground in many parts of Ireland that you will want to explore, be cautious and watch your footing. A loose rock that tilted sideways is what caused her fall.
All in all, we enjoyed the weather, the scenery, the flowers, the friendly Irish people, the food, the beer, the craic and music in the pubs, and had great B&B hosts and hostesses. More to follow later....Dan