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Best Plan?

Posted by (New York ) on

Mom and I are going to Spain this summer for a wedding- flying in and out of Dublin. We will arrive from Spain after the wedding on the early evening of July 1 in Dublin, have three full days in Ireland and on July 5 will fly home. This is Mom‘s first time to Ireland. We will not have a car. I had thought of staying in Dublin and taking a few bus trips to the Ring of Kerry, the Dingle area, Cliffs of Moher, Galway etc. Some of the bus trips visit a few of these places in a very long day trip from Dublin.

My question is, since most of what we want to see seems to be on the south/central western side of Ireland, are we better off taking a bus from the Dublin airport on July 1 to a better location to stay for these day trips? I realize that it would mean losing a few hours to travel time on our last full day in order to get back to Dublin the day before our flight leaves for home, but Mom is not really interested in seeing Dublin so a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening to just walk around a bit will be enough. Any suggestions? Should we look at staying in Limerick or Galway? The other issue is that Mom sometimes has back pain and having taken a few of these very long bus today tours from Dublin myself, I’m just not sure if this would be too much for her and if a closer location would be a better idea. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Posted by
3081 posts

Sounds like your best bet, given all of your particulars, might be to head directly to Galway upon arrival in Dublin and use that as your base for day trips exploring the beautiful Connemara region, including perhaps a trip via the ferry over to Inishmore. The Aran Island ferry company offers a shuttle service (for a small fee) to get you to the ferry terminal and back from downtown Galway. Can't beat the comfort and convenience. Can get to Galway by bus or train in about 2.5 hours.
While Dingle and Kerry are terrific, they're both quite a bit further away and you'd wind up using much of your discretionary time just getting there and back using public transport.

Belfast would be an option too, either as a day trip from Dublin or as a potential base for exploring the North.
Day trips to Glendalough and the Wicklow mountains, Powerscourt, Newgrange and the Boyne Valley would also be cost-effective ways to explore some of the countryside from Dublin.
You don't have much time to work with and really need to manage your time carefully to keep the whole trip from becoming a blur.

Posted by
12315 posts

I'd encourage you to stay in Dublin, simply to avoid moving constantly. One day to see sights in Dublin isn't too many. You could add day trips from the downtown bus station (Busarus) on BusEirann to go north to see sights in Bru na Boinne (Trim Castle, Hill of Tara, Newgrange) and another day going south to Wicklow (views of lakes and mountains, Glendalough, and I believe Powerscourt). If you did those, you wouldn't need a car. The two manageable day trips wouldn't leave you worn out but you would see quite a bit.

I've only taken the Bru na Boinne tour (with my mother). The trip covered a lot of good sights and was well paced. As I recall, you leave downtown Dublin about 10 and get back about 5. https://www.buseireann.ie/news.php?id=968&month=Jun

If you decide to go to Galway and tour from there, is it possible to fly in to/out of Shannon rather than Dublin? That would save you two roughly four hour drives there and back.

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