Essential Ireland Tours

Nope but just took the 7 day RS tour.

My wife and I took the Northern Ireland tour last year. Outstanding. Stephen McPhilemy is a gifted tour guide, storyteller, comedian and not a bad singer too. He'll make you laugh, cry, and sing.

Based on our recommendation, some friends took another one of his tours this year in the south. They likewise couldn't say enough good things.

If you want to see one of the Rick Steves videos that Stephen is in, the below link will give you the chance.

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/northern-ireland

Happy travels!

Oh, yeah, 5 years ago we took the then 8 day RS Ireland tour where Stephen was the guide at the time. Unbelievably good. But I've heard all the other Rick Steve guides are fantastic -- although I'll admit I have a hard time believing they can match him.

You can't go wrong either way!

Happy travels.

Thanks, David! Since you’ve traveled with both groups, what would you say are the similarities and differences between the RS and Essential Ireland tours? Is there a difference in quality of accommodations? Were your tour mates similar types of people? Any details would be really helpful. Thanks!

I think they will be pretty similar in pacing, in types of places they stay (w/ exception of castles tour offered by Essential Ireland), what they see and so on. The Essential Ireland are small groups-- ours was 9 people.

But I actually personally preferred the RS group size more which for us was 24.

Stephen loads the day and even the supposed free time had overfilled options so be prepared for long days -- if you count the nights at the pubs-- which is not to missed!

His "bus time" between sites was my favorite thing though-- he'd tell stories growing up in the troubles, he'd educate us on "soupers", he'd get all singing Irish tunes-- it was like having George Carlin leading a tour.

I honestly think though either way will be great!

Stephen was just a guest on a recent episode of Monday Night Travel. You can see him here. He seems very personable.

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/travel-classes/monday-night-travel/dublin

He just retired as a Rick Steves guide to focus more on his own tour company, the Essential Ireland Tours.

Sounds fantastic… IF you get Stephen as your guide. Unfortunately they now seem to have multiple guides. Seems like that happens a lot…a great RS guide starts their own small company and leads the tours themselves, word gets out that the tours are great and more people sign up so they expand and add more guides, who may or may not create the same experience