You are right, that is a VERY fast pace for Ireland.  Keep in mind that, as Michelle points out, the average driving time is 35 mph, even if you WANT to go faster, as there are small, windy roads, obstacles, weather, and towns to go through on any route.  There are very few roads that bypass the towns, you have to go through them -- usually at a snails pace, since the street is not wide enough for the rows of cars on either side, parking along the street.  You are also not, apparently, staying in any place for more than one night -- a backbreaking pace.  Remember that time is spent checking in, unpacking, familiarizing yourself with the B&B, the area, the parking, and then checking out, navigating, getting lost, etc.

In Ireland, the journey is the most delightful -- and the most harrowing -- part of the trip.  Try to skip some things if you can.  Are you wedded to going to Cork?  Or can you skip that and go straight to Killarney for a few days?  You can day trip it from Killarney to much of the southwest, and then base in Galway for a couple days as well.  Travel from Galway to Belfast I'm not sure on, as I've never been in the north, but my general advice is to take it easier.  You won't get much delight from the trip if you don't remember it

Thanks for your comments.  Our daughter is coming up to Dublin from Waterford to meet us on the 10th.  Part of the reason we had planned to go north to Belfast and into Scotland is for her (not that we wouldn't also like to see it) because the plan all along was for her to wait for us to come over and take her with us.  Students always see a way to get a free trip .  My hubby shortened our trip by two days and two days actually makes quite a difference. 

Key things that we wanted to see are the Blarney Castle, Dingle Peninsula, Burren and maybe a cave (Aillwee).  The interests up north are basically Belfast, Giant's Causeway and Loch Ness.  A possible plan would be:

Feb 10:  Arrive Dublin.  I have travelled over to London before and know that you don't want to do much the first day. Stay dublin overnight

Feb 11:  Hop on Hop off tour of dublin.  Our daughter lived here for two months so she has some places she wants us to see.  Stay dublin again

Feb 12:  Original plan was to go to Waterford but if we are intent on going north this might be the time to do it.  Train up to Belfast and overnight there.  If we take an earlier train might be able to do a tour of belfast also.

Feb 13:  I'm not sure if we should rent a car or what to go to Giants Causeway.  If we do go across to Scotland is it more expensive to take a car or what is the procedure there?  I've tried to get approximate costs from the ferry website to no avail.  If we do manage to go across to scotland we would probably stay somewhere in the Glasgow area for the night.  One concern is do we rent a car in Belfast or in Scotland?

Feb 14:  Drive up to Inverness and take a day tour of Loch Ness and surrounding area.  Stay overnight there.

Feb 15:  Leave to return to Belfast (not sure how long that would take) Would we be doing good just to get back to Belfast or could we return to Dublin?

Feb 16:  If we manage to return to dublin, we could take the train down to Waterford, rent a car and head out from there.  I only wanted to save hubby from driving in the dublin area.  It's so hard for me to get a grasp on how long it takes to travel somewhere because the distances sound so short! (I drive 30km to get to work and it takes 15-20 min.).

Feb 17:  IF we go with this plan what would you recommend we do for these days?  I am going to speak to my daughter about the wisdom of trying to do all of this but...

Feb 18:

Feb 19:

Feb 20:  We have to arrive back in Dublin for the night as our flight leaves Feb 21 a.m.

I have even considered flights from Belfast to Glasgow but have not checked prices yet.  The ferry ride would be nice but seems like it might be quite expensive although I haven't found any definite rates yet.

I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.  Thanks so much!

Melanie

Okay we've now decided that there just isn't time to go to Scotland at all.  I'm a little disappointed but it kind of feels like a relief too.  The itinerary now looks like:

Feb 10:  arrive Dublin, stay there until the 12th.  Originally we were planning to take the train down to waterford and rent a car there.  This was only so my hubby wouldn't have to tackle dublin traffic right off the hop.  There are not very many places in waterford to rent a car however so choices are limited.  My question is how far out is dublin airport and would it be a difficult place to begin driving from?  It would be much easier if we could rent our car from dublin but I wouldn't want to freak my husband out with crazy traffic right away (it would be a sunday though, that might make a difference).  Anyway if you could let me know your thoughts on this.

We planned to stay the night at the waterford castle and then head out the next day (might do the crystal factory first) towards cork.  We wanted to visit Blarney castle and then head towards killarney.  We thought we would spend the night somewhere in the area(Feb 13).

The next day (feb 14)we planned to travel towards the dingle peninsula and maybe stay in Tralee for a night or two depending if we have enough that we want to see and do and also if we like the b&b that we're at.

We would probably take the ferry (at Tarbert?)and go to Co. Clare that way instead of going around by Limerick(from what I've read there is not too much to see there).  In this area we wanted to go to the cliffs of moher, the burren, aillwee cave and bunratty castle.

Our plan is to be back in dublin on the 18th.  I have looked at train travel to belfast and it's only a two hour trip and not overly expensive so I thought we could probably drop off the car and take the train to belfast.  There is a mini coach tour to the giants causeway and bushmills that leaves at 9:30 in the morning and returns to belfast at 5:45 so we could arrange to do that on sunday the 19th.  Then on the 20th we could go on a hop on hop off bus tour of belfast before taking the train back to dublin.  Our flight leaves the morning of the 21st.

It still kind of sounds busy but we are wanting to try to see as much as we can while there and not so much looking for a lot of leisure time.  I would like to hear any thoughts or suggestions that anyone might have for us.  Any recommendations for accommodation in belfast would be great too.  We don't plan to have a car while we're there so we would like to be pretty centrally located with restaurants and pubs not too far away.  Thanks!

Melanie

Thanks for your comments Michele.  I'm glad to hear that getting our car at dublin airport should be easy enough.  It makes much more sense for starting and ending our loop tour.

The only reason I had planned to stay just one night in Killarney is that I didn't have enough that we wanted to do in that area.  All I think I had there was the dingle peninsula.  We were going to move to tralee because I found a b&b that sounds really nice and I haven't found a place in killarney that makes me really want to stay there.  I thought the rest of the places we wanted to see were in Co. Clare so I had planned that we'd spend a couple of nights there for sure.  Any opinions (or corrections) on this would be very welcome.  I could be overlooking some areas or attractions that we really should see.

I will check into the holiday inn in belfast.  I've been looking at some b&bs mainly because we seem to get better prices on triple rooms in b&bs.  I'm just not sure what area we should try to be in since we won't have a car there and don't want to have to take a taxi everywhere.

Thanks, melanie