Ireland Itinerary by Rail & Bus - What to Leave in or Out

Just a thought since you'll be arriving in the early morning and say that one of your destinations will be Killarney : Ryan Air has a morning flight from Dublin to the Kerry airport near Killarney that departs around 8:55 AM. Costs less than $50 and takes about an hour to get there. If you can work that in to your itinerary after arrival on Day 1 it might streamline things a bit. Besides, you'll probably be pretty tired and at a loss for things to do while waiting to check into your accommodations, so why not put the time to good use by just continuing on a little further that day?

I traveled by bus, train, and boat when I went to Ireland. You can have a great trip on public transport and it is definitely my preferred way of travel. That said, there are some logistical challenges involved. It will take longer to get to places than you might expect. I like that you are availing yourself of several day tours, that seems an excellent idea.

My suggestion is to increase the length of your trip. You think it may be your only trip? Then rather than try to put too much in a short time, extend the time you have available on this trip. Even 2-3 days more would make a difference.

Carol now retired - We would love to add more days but are also visiting a friend who lives near London on this trip and are under some time constraints. We usually travel in a single country for at least 3 weeks but may not be able to this time. We've put this trip off since 2020 and hat to keep waiting. We'd rather see what we can at this point.

Robert - Thanks for the suggestion. Prior to the Ireland trip we may be visiting a friend who lives near Stansted airport north of London so we may look into flying from there to one of our stops in Ireland.

I see that RyanAir runs direct flights from Stanstead to Kerry, Shannon and Cork so I suppose any of those would work to get you on your way.
My suggestion would still be to start with Kerry. Though the general recommendation here is to avoid Killarney town, in your case (without a car) it's probably your best choice for a base since there are a myriad of day trips from there that will take you all around the area - escorted coach trips around the ROK, up to Dingle, and down to the Beara peninsula to the south. There's even a day trip that combines a boat trip across the Lough to Lord Brandon's Cottage, a pony trap from there thru the Gap of Dunloe, lunch at Kate Kearney's and then a bus ride back into town.
From there maybe catch the afternoon RyanAir flight back to Dublin. As was mentioned, with some minor surgery to your plan you can still put together a nice itinerary using public transport with Dublin as your base. Belfast is a couple of hours away as is Galway, opening up the possibility of quick getaways for a few days to either one, reserving a few days for Dublin itself.

Robert - Thanks again for your guidance. I wish we could have done this trip when we were still able to drive, as we've done in England, Scotland, France, and Italy, as I know we could have seen the out-of-the-way places but we've gotten to the point in life where we accept that anything we see is something we haven't seen before and we'll enjoy whatever we do get to do. And maybe we will get to return!