Charges to park at major sites

Not without sympathy for you, but when you rent a car in Europe, you need to factor in road tolls, fuel and parking costs to arrive at the real price.

When I visited, here is what the answers to your questions would be:

Parking charge is included with the admissions price for some of them. If you buy a ticket, you have paid for parking.

No, you cannot avoid the parking charges that I am aware of. Parking except in the designated areas may result in you getting towed.

No, the car parks are not accessible before/after hours when the attendants are not present. They do remain around for a while after close to let everyone out.

Although many of your sites are out doors, the entry to them is closely controlled and it is not possible to enter them outside of regular opening hours.

Accommodating lots of visitors costs money, and it's only reasonable that the visitors pay. Compared with the total cost of your trip, parking costs are minimal.

On our trip last September, I don't recall Newgrange having parking charges. Our entrance fee did include a shuttle bus from the visitor's center to the sight, though. As for parking charges per person, so many sights have big tour buses, it would be tough to charge all 50 people on the bus, and I'd imagine charges would be per vehicle.

We visited the Giant's Causeway, but hiked there from a free parking spot 5 miles to the east. It was a severely windy day, though, and a 3-year-old would likely have had a tough time on the walking path, along the top of the cliffs, 300 feet above the sea. From the Causeway site, a cheap shuttle bus took us back to our car, out of the wind!

On an earlier trip, we rode bikes up a long, steep hill to the Cliffs of Moher, and walked them past the pay parking lots, and chained them up at the free bike rack just outside the visitor's center. We were touring the west of Ireland by bike, so didn't rent a car that trip. The fast ride downhill afterwards was sure exciting!

Thank you all for the helpful info.! Can't wait!

It’s been about 10 years since I was in Ireland and can’t remember which places I had to pay to park at, if any. Unfortunately, as already stated, paying for parking is part of the cost of having a rental car. My general experience across Europe is the cost is per car not person. In the overall scheme of things, parking costs are nominal. We thoroughly enjoyed Rock of Cashel, Cliffs of Moher, the causeway, Cahir castle, and the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. Didn’t go into the others. Dunluce castle is really a ruin, and there are better ruins than it, so we just drove by it.

Regarding Cashel. Last May we parked on the street, maybe 3-4 blocks from “the Rock”. We weren’t trying to avoid parking fees (don’t recall whether there are any). We just weren’t going into the main building which we had previously visited. Generally, I don’t mind paying parking fees if it saves me time.

Cliffs parking was included in the ticket. Charles Fort was nothing. Rock of Cashel was €4,50 for an hour. That’s all we have done on your list

Don't fret about the cost of parking, it's a tiny fraction of the total cost of your trip.

For the cliffs, we didn’t pay to go into the visitor experience. We just parked the car and went to the cliffs. Maybe things have changed.

I have a feeling that both the Cliffs of Moher & Giants Causeway are a little misleading like that; it looks like you're paying for parking but it's actually a(see the fine print!) visitor centre ticket you're buying. I think that there are places you can park for both and just walk in(they might not be terribly close though). Interesting options for CoM are Guerin's Path(just minutes to the Cliffs) through a private farm just south of the visitor centre and another farm lot option even further south, down by Liscannor/Hags Head which is even cheaper. Really depends if you want the VC experience(and restrooms) or are willing to perhaps hoof it a bit. Hope this isn't too late to catch you!

With all due respect to the person who thinks Dunluce Castle is just a ruin and drove right by it....please, Rachel, don't do that. Yes, Dunluce is a ruin (as are 80% of the castles in Ireland), but if you skip going inside you'll be robbing yourself of a great experience. The views are spectacular, there's a walkway that goes down under the castle, and standing at the back rail where the kitchen allegedly fell into the sea is very cool. This is not a drive by. BTW, since you're going to Dunluce, the Causeway, and Carrick-a-rede, I really suggest you check out Kinbane Castle (it's not far). Not much of the castle is left, but the setting is incredible...the walk out to the tip of the head is amazing. Youtube it...

Also, at the Rock of Cashel...as someone mentioned, you can park in the town and walk to the entrance. If you can't find a spot, there's a car park at the bottom to the right of the entrance...it's about 4 or 5 euros. When you've finished there, I suggest driving about three minutes to Hore Abbey (which you can see from the Rock). Absolutely spectacular. There are two pull offs in front of the abbey where you can park.

Russ