Cost of Car Rental

Half of that is the cost of the insurance. But also, there could be discounts offered at some time before you go.

I usually am able to rent a car more inexpensively in Europe than in the U.S. I haven't been to Ireland though that does sound high. Have you tried Autoeurope?

Tried AutoEurope. They don't have a pickup in Kilkenny (as I was told)

The insurance piece is always frustrating. My credit card has car rental insurance for Europe, but it has a deductible. It's aggravating, tho, because at least in our case, if we buy insurance so we don't have a deductible and so that anything that happens doesn't create a hassle, we lose the insurance that comes with the card! So we typically decline the insurance. On our recent trip to southern Spain we rented for 3 days, and the full coverage insurance was pretty inexpensive so we opted in. A good choice! We had some dings due to very, very narrow roads. They wouldn't have amounted to much, but this way, we didn't have a hassle. You might try Autoeurope on the phone if you haven't. Some of the staff have provided us with some good ideas. Also, I think you have some time before you need to make any decision.

The Super CDW is only adding about 20Euros per day to the price. The Base was around 303. I'm hoping the cost is high because I'm looking so far in advance.

I've been looking at pickup in Kilkenny for May, 2019. The only company I could find is Enterprise. Are you returning to Kilkenny or dropping off elsewhere?

pick up in Kilkenny, drop off at Shannon Airport

I booked through Auto Europe in 2016 for a May visit, picking up in Shannon and dropping at Dublin airport. It was around $70 a day U.S. We needed the super CDW because of a fairly minor scratch that may or may not have happened on my watch. $135 Canadian is around $100 U.S. so this does seem a bit high. I am seeing about $52 U.S. for the same rental that we did on our trip, only for next September (automatic/compact car with drop fee). It might be worth it to take the bus to someplace where the rental pickup is more reasonable. i.e. picking up in Kilkenny might be what is driving the cost up. I think Auto Europe still charges a full week a rental of four, five, or six days though--that is one thing to consider when booking through them. Kilkenny to Dublin airport is only a couple of hours on the bus. Or, modify your itinerary to pick up at an airport. We landed at Shannon and took the bus up to Galway for a couple of nights, then bus back down to Shannon to pick up the car. We avoided driving upon arrival that way, and also saved two days car rental expense. The buses are quite good in Ireland and there are direct buses from the airport to many places.

I went thru rentalcar a third party site (hooked up with booking.com) and got a unbelievable price $200cad for 7 days. Pickup in Galway, drop off dublin airport. It is with Payless car rentals but booked through rental cars.com. When I tried it through payless it was going to be like $800. This is for march 2019.
I also purchased their insurance (full coverage top to bottom) for another $100cad.
I hope it works out but I do have multiple email confirmations and numbers so here’s to hoping!

Maybe this will help find a better rate for you.

I think my problem is not renting from the airport. If I ask for quotes from either Dublin Airport or Cork Airport, I get a rate of about $290. I will have to rethink our itinerary a bit. I am trying to end up at the Rock of Cashel and thought staying in Kilkenny a night and renting from there would work. I'm leaning toward just taking a train from Dublin to Cork, and renting a car there and driving the hour to Cashel. Cost for the train is only 2 Euro's more than taking a bus from downtown Dublin to the airport, and I really don't want to have to try to drive from the Dublin airport. Also, car rental from Cork seems to be about $10 less.

I went through a popular on-line booking tool and didn't have to pay anything up front. I opened up a credit card (I won't mention it here if that violates the rules) that provided rental coverage and got a letter from them stating SPECIFICALLY that the coverage was good in Ireland. This way I was able to just rent the car without any extras so it's about $390 for the 9 days with an automatic trans. Unless I misunderstand, as long as I book using the credit card and decline all other coverages I'm good. What made it difficult is many of the websites included all the additional coverages "free" with no option to decline which rose the price. The credit card company offers an included Loss/Damage Waiver which covers theft or damage up to the actual cash value of the vehicle when it was manufactured, loss of use charges, and towing charges. I thought I read the rental came with liability coverage but I can't seem to locate that info.

Any one know what maximum age allows to drive rental car in Ireland

I also grappled with where to start, in the end Dublin airport seemed the sanest place to fetch and drop the car since we arrive/leave out of Dublin. Cork was my 2nd choice. dropping in Dublin. But it seems that 6 or 7 days is the same price for the car rental (I needed 6 days) and with an automatic car, the cheapest option out of Dublin airport in 6 weeks or so is about US$300 not including the extra glass insurance. That's about $47-$48/day all-in. I'm not thrilled as 4-5 days was around $200 and another car company said it was around $100 - both for stick shift/manual transmission. I'll go with automatic transmission for safety but it's a bit of a budget buster. One week for $300 not including gas. But including the full CDW etc.