We are planning a trip to Ireland and would like to draw from others experience. This is our first trip to Ireland and wanted to get ideas for being in Ireland for 10 days not including travel days Would Shannon or Dublin be the best airport to fly into? We are not interested in renting a car and like the travel by train option or small group tours but want to make sure we see the normal Ireland attractions. My grandfather was from County Clare and I would like to try and find out as much as possible about family so if anyone knows a good starting point for that it would be great. Any thoughts or suggestions as to a 10 day itinerary and hotel recommendations would be appreciated. We will also be traveling from Ireland to London to visit friends either before or at the end of the trip. It looks like we can take the Irish Ferry and train to or from England. Thanks for your help and advice.
Posted by
Green Bay
21142 posts
Where are you flying from? Shannon is in County Clare, but you are likely to have many more flights direct to Dublin from The States. More flights means more competition and lower prices. Ireland is not that big. It is only about 150 miles from Dublin to the center of County Clare, and there is rail service between Dublin and few spots in County Clare.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
While Dublin has more year-round flights, there are flights to Shannon year-round from some places in the US (JFK, Newark, Boston), and seasonally from others (Philadelphia, Chicago). Wherever you start in Ireland, you want to fly home for London to minimize backtracking (or you will want to start in London and fly home from Ireland).
Use Kayak https://www.kayak.com/flights or Google Flights https://www.google.com/flights/ to see all the possibilities from your home airport(s). Use the "multi city" or "multiple destinations" option, rather than "one way" or "round trip," to find flights from the US to Shannon and from London to the US.
A handy trick I learned on this Forum: to learn who flies where from a particular airport, look at that airport's Wikipedia page. For instance, here's the ones for Shannon airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations and Dublin airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations
For getting from Ireland to London, you can take the ferry and train, or you can fly. Again, lots of airports in Ireland have flights to London (London has six airports, as far as the airlines are concerned). Particularly if you want to go from western Ireland to London, and/or if you don't want to stop off at places in between, flying will save lots of time. To find flights within Europe, look at Skyscanner: https://www.skyscanner.com/. Do a dummy booking (up to the point where you put in your credit card) to see all the fees and rules on these flights. Many of them will be on budget carriers, which have extra charges for all kinds of things and enforce their rules strictly. Not a problem as long as you're prepared, but potentially very expensive and frustrating if you're not.
A great source of info for trains is The Man In Seat 61. Here's his page on trains in Ireland: http://seat61.com/Ireland.htm#Train%20travel%20in%20Ireland and here's his page on getting from Ireland to London without flying: http://seat61.com/Ireland.htm
Posted by
6 posts
If you have a choice, always fly home from Ireland rather than the United Kingdom. Ireland has US Customs pre-clearance, so when you get to the states you can head straight to luggage with no Customs delay. You can thank Ted Kennedy for that.