I was over on another board asking questions about a future trip to Scotland, when someone's comment made me realize that some here might be interested in the trip my sister and I took to Ireland last year. This will be long, but I hope it will be helpful.
Some overview information: Neither of us had been to Ireland before. We had friends who had been the year before and they checked in on facebook to every place they went, so I went back through their posts and used many of their ideas. We also did the same so that our friends and family at home could 'travel' with us, and so that I'd have a record to help me remember the trip. We agreed that the itinerary we used allowed us to see a lot of the country, though we didn’t hit everything, while we didn’t feel like we were racing from site to site.
We left DFW on 9/30, and flew through Heathrow. I've been through airports all over the world, and I found the Heathrow connection incredibly stressful. We were told to get in the wrong line through customs and found it very hard to figure out where we were supposed to go to get our connecting flight.
We spent our first two nights in Dublin before setting out on the road. We stayed at the Fitzwilliam Townhouse. It was in a good location, but was extremely basic. I'd prefer to stay somewhere just a bit nicer. I love taking the hop on-hop off bus tours to get my bearings in a new city, so we got a two day ticket and used that as our transportation for the most part. We both agreed that our favorite site in Dublin, and possibly on the whole trip, was Kilmainham Gaol. I would tell anyone not to miss it. We also really enjoyed the Trinity College tour and seeing the iconic Library.
We enjoyed all the the places that we ate. Some of the highlights are Matt The Thresher, Butlers Chocolate Café, and Doheny Nesbitts.
On October 3rd we picked up our rental car and headed out into the rest of the country. At the car rental agency we made a last minute decision to add a mobile wifi hotspot to our rental. I believe the cost was $20 per day, but we both believed that it was worth it and will now always choose this option. This was a small device that we could use rather than using the international data plan on our phones. We went over the international data limit very easily before we had the hotspot. We had lots of friends and family back home that really enjoyed our facebook updates, so this helped us be able to post a lot. The hotspot charged in the car while we were driving, then we could throw it in a backpack to carry with us when we were walking around sites or towns. The service was very good and I don’t think there were many places that it didn’t work. I was even able to use Periscope, which is an app that will live stream video to your followers. However, it was made clear to us that it would not work in Northern Ireland, and it didn’t. The signal died just within the border, so while we were in the part of the country we were really missing it.
Our first stop was Waterford where we toured the factory. The café there was a great place to eat while we waited for our tour. After that we headed to the Rock of Cashel, which was in competition for our favorite site. We had intended to try to drive on that night, but it was a Saturday night and we were having trouble finding a place at our intended destination. So we got a last minute room at Ashmore House B&B in Cashel. The rooms were very basic, but a great value for the price. We walked to dinner that night in town, then had a perfect Irish breakfast the next morning.
On October 4th we started with a tour of Muckross House, where we agreed that Mr. Darcy had to be just around the corner, then a drive through Killarney National Park to Lady’s View.