Welcome to the forum. The "real" Ireland is all of Ireland even the tourist spots. It is always possible to go off the beaten track anywhere. The secret is to get off the motorways and main roads and get lost in the countryside. Stop and look around little towns. Ask the local people questions about the area, which starts a conversation. Then try to find those interesting out of the way places they tell you about.

Other than Loop Head you will be on the main tourist trail. Nothing wrong with that. Those places are well-visited for a reason: strategic locations, beautiful scenery and lots to see and do.

Here are my suggestions for your itinerary:

On the drive from Dublin to Galway: Belvedere House & Gardens and Clonmacnoise Monastic Site.

Do Connemara from Galway.

Since you are going all the way to the tip of West Clare I would overnight in Kilrush rather than backtrack all the way to Ennis. Most people take the tunnel under the Shannon River now, however since you will be that far south it makes sense in your case to take the car ferry across the river on your way to Dingle.

Skip one night in Dingle and break up the long drive back to Dublin. I would stay in Cashel. On the drive you can see Cahir Castle, Swiss Cottage and Rock of Cashel.

The coastline of Ireland is generally the most spectacular bit. The midlands have gentler scenery, which is why most tourist routes take you to the coastal regions.

Michele Erdvig wrote:

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Welcome to the forum. The "real" Ireland is all of Ireland even the tourist spots. It is always possible to go off the beaten track anywhere. The secret is to get off the motorways and main roads and get lost in the countryside. Stop and look around little towns. Ask the local people questions about the area, which starts a conversation. Then try to find those interesting out of the way places they tell you about. 

Other than Loop Head you will be on the main tourist trail. Nothing wrong with that. Those places are well-visited for a reason: strategic locations, beautiful scenery and lots to see and do.

Here are my suggestions for your itinerary:

On the drive from Dublin to Galway: Belvedere House & Gardens and Clonmacnoise Monastic Site.

Do Connemara from Galway.

Since you are going all the way to the tip of West Clare I would overnight in Kilrush rather than backtrack all the way to Ennis. Most people take the tunnel under the Shannon River now, however since you will be that far south it makes sense in your case to take the car ferry across the river on your way to Dingle. 

Skip one night in Dingle and break up the long drive back to Dublin. I would stay in Cashel. On the drive you can see Cahir Castle, Swiss Cottage and Rock of Cashel. 

The coastline of Ireland is generally the most spectacular bit. The midlands have gentler scenery, which is why most tourist routes take you to the coastal regions. 

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Thanks Michelle!

On the "touristy" bit, I get what you're saying.  I'm just hoping I don't end up walking into pubs and finding more Americans than Irish folk.

To add Connemara, what would you remove?  Aran Islands?

If I took the tunnel under the Shannon River would I miss the Connor Pass?  I've heard that's a very scenic way into Dingle and was excited about it.

We're not actually tied to flying out of Dublin.  Ireland is actually the first leg of a 23-day Europe trip and we're headed down to southern Europe next.  We can fly out of somewhere more convenient to where we are if we can find a flight, the flights just appear to be significantly cheaper out of Dublin.

 

tony2phones wrote:

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From Galway you are going to head to Croagh Patrick without considering the Connemara on the way there or the way back. But plan on 3 days for Dingle? Personally I would have 3 days for the Connemara and Mayo including Achill Island (Clifden or Westport would be better bases than Galway for this) and one for Dingle which has 3 times the reputation but 1/3rd the area. I would much as I love Ennis agree with Michele, if you aim to see Loop Head which is well worth a little time then staying between Ennistymon and Carrigaholt before crossing by ferry makes sense.

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I hear you on Connemara, and I appreciate the bluntness (not being facetious, it's good to get feedback like that).  One of our goals is to not be rushed (I was actually hoping to set up two vrbo bases for the whole trip but it looks like that would put some stuff too far away) so some cuts had to be made, and that was one that would save us a lot of days.  It didn't help that my wife has heard a lot about Dingle from her co-workers and is really fixated on it.  I'm not sure she'd go for 1 night in Dingle with us traveling on both sides of that night.

I suppose one alternative, as you mentioned, is to stay in somewhere like Clifden or Westport and make a day trip to Galway rather than the other way around.  Something like..

Day 1: Dublin

Day 2: Dublin->Clifden

Day 3: Day trip to Galway Arts Festival

Day 4: Connemara

Day 5: Connemara/Croagh Patrick

Day 6: Clifden->Kilrush

Day 7: Kilrush->Dingle

Day 8: Dingle

Day 9: Dingle->Cashel

Day 10: Cashel->Flight

-- Edited by Moyer921 on Tuesday 14th of May 2013 12:01:38 AM

Looks like a plan but as above, consider flying to UK/Europe from Cork which would also allow the trip up to Cashel/Cahir as they are only an hour up the road.
Unfortunately what you see is what you get with me and Dingle doesn't fit well on my shelves. If you get a good day or two for Connemara and Achill the rose coloured tint on your wife's glasses might fade a little, its a nice enough peninsula down there but over sold since the Dolphin and Rick Steves,

This map has some highlights for the Connemara area http://goo.gl/maps/L5ihu  for Achill (and other places) http://www.irelandtravelkit.com/?s=Achill&submit=Search and see also http://ireland.activeboard.com/t50055177/n59-galway-route/ 

Good news on the Ireland front. I've decided to add one extra day to the Ireland leg of the trip, which opens up some cheap flights out of either Kerry or Cork. So adding the one extra day really saves us almost two days as we don't have to do the drive all the way back across to Dublin. Here's the broader version of what I'm thinking now...

Day 1: Dublin
Day 2: Dublin->Galway Area
Day 3: Galway Area
Day 4: Galway Area
Day 5: Galway Area
Day 6: Galway Area
Day 7: Galway Area -> Kilrush (Burren, Cliffs of Moher, Loop Head on the way)
Day 8: Kilrush -> Dingle
Day 9: Dingle
Day 10: Dingle
Day 11: Dingle -> Flight out of Kerry

So now the questions/decisions I need to make...

1) We now have 4 full days in the Galway area. Day 1 will be heading into Galway for the Arts festival. The other 3 days will need to be divided between Connemara, Croagh Patrick, Aran Islands, Achill Island, or a bike ride (Sky Road, Westport greenway). Obviously some cuts have to be made here..

2) We were originally planning to stay in Galway itself when we were up in that area. With more days up north of Galway now I'm thinking we might be better off staying elsewhere and driving in to Galway on that first day. It looks like the options are Westport, Clifden, or Oughterard. Which is most convenient to the activities listed above (as well as Galway itself for the first day), but will still have some pubs for us to frequent after a day of exploring?  It looks like there are also some vrbo cottages available near clonbur.

3) Worth removing one day of Dingle (I think I know Tony's answer to this one :P)? If so, would it be better spent with an extra day up in the Galway Area or with a visit to Cashel (flying out of Cork instead of Kerry)?

4) Starting in Kilrush, would we still be able to go over the Connor Pass on the way to Dingle?

 

Thanks so much!  You have both been a huge help.  We're so excited for this trip!

Westport is probably the best base for your Connemara section, I prefer Clifden but it would be less practical. We had a week booked in Clonbur once, can't remember a thing about it except that we moved on after the first night, there is nothing there..

Dingle is a touring base for Dingle.. The tour bus from Dingle takes 4 hours to see the main sights. If you want 4 nights on 0.6% of the island its your holiday. The Connor pas is just the northern route along the peninsula rather than the south road, There are only 2 roads off the spur.

Cork gives an awful lot more flight options than the Ryanair Kerry airport.

To be clear, the itinerary above includes 3 nights in Dingle, not 4. Day 8 (travel day) and night, full day/night on Day 9, full day/night on Day 10. Day 11 is a travel day and that night will be outside of Ireland.

Part of the reasoning here is, as mentioned in the first post, we don't want to get stuck moving where we stay too much if possible. Ideally we'd split the 10 days into two home bases, doing day trips from there. Realistically, we realize we're going to have to spend one night in Dublin (not driving after that red-eye flight) and one night on the way from the Connemara area headed south or that day (Day 7) will just be too long.

It sounds like people think a full 2.5 days in Dingle (Day 8 travel day, full days on Day 9 and 10) is too long. Perhaps a better option would be staying in another town near the Dingle peninsula and using that as a base to spend one full day doing the peninsula loop, and then spend the other day and a half elsewhere down in that region?

As an unrelated aside, is the area up north of Galway (Connemara, etc) more rocky and less green than other areas of Ireland? For some reason my wife is obsessed with bright greenery and I want to prepare her.

Clifden is definitely Traditional Music biased, has a very active Comhaltas goup, don't know where the country and western comes in but a lot of Irish bias is towards Bluegrass type music rather than old trad when it comes cieli (set dancing) nights. There is lots of greenery some forestry, mountains. rivers, ,and loughs (lots) around Connemara but yes there is a fair amount of rocky scenery to go with it.

I am a bit hard on Dingle, comes from the abuse I get on TA for saying it might rain there, plus the memories of how genuine it was pre Dolphin and Steves. If you get a good day then getting out to the Blaskets could be a good option and Invaragh (ring of Kerry) or Muckross and the National park are possible as a day trip.

Hmmm, a toast for the "good old days"! Many go to Ireland because it is thought to be somewhat in a time warp, and the country harkens back to a time of a more simple and down to earth life style. But of course times are changing there, as most everywhere else.

We have managed to stumble on quite a few locations in Ireland that resemble what much of the country must have been like, not in the too distant past.

I recall standing on the chunk of ground in Rural Cork County that my Great Great Grandfather leased, to try to eak out a living for his family after the great famine, just prior to moving to the United States. This chunk of gound was just pasture land, and I recall looking down toward the Black River, and thinking....I wonder what was going on in this very spot 160 years ago? Then I turned around and looked over the road, up the hill to giant wind powered electric mills, churning away, and indeed a lot has changed in 160 years

I recall the day and night we spent in the NW Ireland village of Tobercurry, taking in an "Irish night" at the pub... traditional Irish music, food and set dancing!, and then a short distance down the road, 2 nights in Gurteen, carefully planned which allowed us to take in back to back Mon/Tues nights of traditional music in 2 of the 3 pubs in town, most of the musicians very talented and were locals or were from nearby surrounding Sligo county.

Gurteen, a waif of a town, with not many businesses, but full of friendly Irish people, like the guy on a tractor hauling a load of peat; parked right in the middle of the left lane of the street/highway that ran thru town in front of the groc store, and upon returning to his tractor, was willing to visit with us for 20 minutes with his tractor running, groceries in hand, happy to answer all of our questions about peat and its use for fuel to heat many Irish homes in the area.

A 9 day trip will just fly by, with only enough time to see a fraction of all that Ireland has to offer. Our first trip was about that length, and just an overview of the south half of the isle. Then we went back to take an in-depth look at various bits and pieces. Good luck planning....don't stress and drive yourself crazy in the process! We always have more planned than we can possibly do, however I have them prioritized by number, ranked 1,2,3,etc, and if we don't get thru the list, which we rarely do...we just move on and plan to see it next time!

Dan

As I finalize things up on accommodations, I came up with another question.

I've heard that the notion that Irish folks are out frequenting pubs even on weeknights is rather...exaggerated. Given that much of our trip will be during the week, if I stay out in some of the smaller towns like Westport, Oughterard, or even smaller than that are we looking at places that shut down at night? We're not looking for 2am dance clubs or anything like that, but we'd probably enjoy hanging out in a pub until around midnight. Out of the biggish cities (Galway), midsize towns (Westport, etc), or even places smaller than that which of those will we be able to do that in?

tony2phones wrote:

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What Itinerary have you ended up with? which towns?

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Day 1: Arrive in Dublin

Day 2: Dublin

Day 3: Travel to Clifden

Days 4-6: Clifden area, Connemara, Aran Islands, etc

Day 7: Travel to Kilrush through Burren, quick stop at Cliffs of Moher

Day 8: Travel to Dingle, hitting Loop Head along the way

Day 9: Dingle Loop

Day 10: Travel to Killarney and do Dunloe Gap

Day 11: Head to Kerry airport in late afternoon and fly out to London

 

I found out that the Galway Arts Festival isn't actually through the whole month of July and actually starts the day we leave, so I removed that day in favor of an extra day of Dublin.  I'm still considering a last minute audible from Clifden to Westport (doing Achill instead of Aran), but right now this is what I've got pretty well finalized.

-- Edited by Moyer921 on Thursday 30th of May 2013 03:07:37 PM

Inishbofin has just been voted best Island get away for Ireland in the Irish times and you get there from Cleggan just above Cliffden, There is also Clare Island from Westport and Achill always gets my vote

There are not a whole lot of B&Bs in Kilrush but you generally have a better chance of getting one on a Thursday rather than a weekend night.

Have some other options in mind if that does not work out. 

Is that a Fri or Sat night?

You are staying at my favorite B&B in Ireland, the Emlagh Lodge.  Enjoy -- spectacular views, great meals, and one of the nicest places you will ever stay.

Geno