Car Rental In Ireland

Try Hertz or Dan Dooley. We’ve had good experiences with both. Though it sounds like prices are high everywhere. Good luck and have a wonderful trip.

I have used Conn's Ireland, https://www.connsirelandcarrental.com/, on our last two trips. They are a Hertz franchise with multiple locations. I don't know if they are the absolute least expensive. I chose them because their pricing seemed to be the most transparent. You know what the bottom line is without having to dig through the ins and outs of "excessive coverage". We do not have a credit card or any other insurance that would cover car rentals in Ireland. I also found them to be very helpful and responsive, returning phone calls promptly. They have a US toll free number.

We used Enterprise on our 2018 trip - best price among several companies we checked.

The car rentals in Ireland are just very expensive this year. They're are no deals to be had as far as I could find. Seems to run about $200/day for automatic.
If you are looking for automatic transmission, I only found cars with a couple of companies: Sixt and Budget.

Andrea check autoeurope.ie. The price quotes will be in euros, but it may be cheaper than autoeurope.com.

Thanks for the autoeurope.ie tip. I had already checked them and autoeurope.eu. So far autoeurope.com has been the cheapest. In addition to the 3 AutoEurope sites I’ve checked Conn’s Ireland, Sixt, Budget, Hertz, Dan Dooley, Priceline (Dollar, Thrifty,Hertz) and Enterprise. I’m going to continue to look, but have to make a decision soon because of the low inventory and less availability of automatics. I can drive a manual and do so on the continent, but prefer an automatic when driving on the left.

We rented an automatic car from Enterprise in Galway several years back. It was less expensive to take the train there from Dublin. They picked us up at our hostel and dropped us off at the train when we returned the car after exploring the southwest part of Ireland for 9 days. Don’t know if this is still the case or not. Good luck!

We are flying into and out of Dublin, so Galway wouldn’t be very practical for us.

I booked our car today and we will drop it off in the evening before our flight out early the next afternoon. That’s saving us about $200. I booked it through AutoEurope, which was the best price I found, though fairly equal to autoeurope.ie. The advantage is the U.S. number to call. I can cancel up to the pick up time for free, so if I find something better I can take advantage of that.

Thanks for your help everyone.

We used Enterprise from DUB in 2018. Excellent and best price. Be careful about returning the car early. I did that once and recall (though not in detail) that it was an unexpected hassle, and still had to pay for the unused day.

https://www.gemut.com/

Try this company. We've rented from them multiple times, including last fall in Ireland, and they're good to work with.

Thanks Patricia, I can’t believe I forgot about them. I just emailed a request to receive a quote.

Thanks for all the tips. I’m having the same problem finding an affordable car. I plan to be in Ireland a couple months. I’m wondering if long term lease rather than rental is possible. Anyone have experience with that or even buying an old used car? I can drive a stick and prefer it.

https://www.gemut.com/

Try this company. We've rented from them multiple times, including
last fall in Ireland, and they're good to work with.

Agree with Patricia. Whenever I need a rental overseas, my first (and usually only) call goes to Gemut. I've always had good experiences with them for 20+ years, and only a few times have they not been able to hook me up with what I needed (only in fairly obscure places). For any "mainstream" (popular-with-Ameicans) destination in Europe, they have always come through -- including in Ireland. For me, it's a no-brainer: give them your specific wants and needs, and let them do the price comparison shopping for you.

Caveat: I'm perfectly happy with manual transmission (on either side) and have never needed a large/specialty vehicle, just something small with aircon. IME Gemut has been great to work with. Worth a call.

I’m eagerly awaiting a quote from Gemut. I don’t expect it to arrive until Monday at the earliest, but since I requested a quote and gave our specific needs I’ve received 3 emails. It seems they have good customer service.

I booked through autoeurope.com. The price was high, but thankfully we are splitting the cost with another couple. Last week I got an email from AE announcing a limited time sale in Ireland. I checked the website and found our exact same rental was available for $820 less so I called and they adjusted the price. I’ll take it!

Good to hear of your positive outcome! I find those emails about sales annoying….until you get a great deal because of one!

Exactly! I’m hoping there will be a better deal on the car I will have in France in October. I’m definitely going to keep my eyes open for one.