Ironing out itinerary for 14 night first family trip to Ireland

Oh man, my head is spinning. You of course know your kids. But if I tried to drive my teenagers through Dingle, Kerry and Connemara in the span of 7 days and after already driving through Wicklow and what else ... well, the word “patricide” comes to mind. So I would skip Kerry and spend time in Killarney National Park. I think there would be more teenager-friendly activities there.

For more specific suggestions for any given area I suggest you post threads by region and specify what sort of activities your family is interested in.

I agree with kclyons. You are biting off an awful lot here. If you had 28 nights instead of 14, this might work. I strongly advise you to scale back. So much of the pleasure in visiting Ireland is just being in a given place. You will miss out on that if you try to zoom from one popular destination to another.

This is the simple itinerary - does this look like too much?
2 nights in Dublin (arrive at 9am) - Gaol, Trinity, Temple Bar, Grafton St., Trinity....sights and sounds of Ireland!
1 night in Kilkenny visit and then see rock of Cashel
2 nights in Kenmare (Kilkenny National Park and lake boat trip and hike Gap of Dunloe)
3 nights in Dingle - Slea Head, Connor Pass, beaches, relax
2 nights in Galway - Cliff or Moher, arrive Galway at dinner time. Aran Island day trip and rent bikes. Sleep Galway and drive to Connemara.
3 nights in Connemara - Killary Sheep Farm, Hawk Walk at Ashford Castle, Sky Road, etc....
1 night (last night before flying home) Dublin - arrive whenever - no rush to leave Connemara.
11am flight home.

If this is still too much, what would you drop?

Have you taken a look at the RS two week itinerary in his guidebook?
Just my 2 cents, no the Cliffs of Moher are not a must do. The walk along the cliffs is nice, but can be very windy.
We spent 3 nts near Killarney. Loved the Gap of Dunloe, but the boat ride is long and kinda boring.
We spent 3 nts in Clifden and Westport and like them both equally.
Dingle is my favorite town in Ireland!
We loved Inishbofin island! A true, hidden gem!

We did 14 days with our kids 2 years ago.

In my experience, you are trying to do too much on day 1. After arriving from an overnight flight, we checked into our hotel and walked around a little, grabbed food and took it easy. I would add a day to Dublin for sure. Dublinia was great for kids to get an idea of the history

On our way out of Kilkenny, we did the Dunsmore caves and I highly recommend them.

Highly recommend Killarney National Park. We rented bikes just outside the park and biked all around stopping at Muckross house and farms. We also really enjoyed taking in a sheep herding demonstration at Kissane farms.

The Cliffs are for sure a must do for us. It really was not the tacky tourist stuff at all.

This was our itinerary in case you are interested:
Night 1, 2 and 3 Dublin
Night 4 Kilkenny
Night 5 and 6 Killarney
Night 7 and 8 Dingle
Night 9 and 10 Galway
Night 11 and 12 Cong
Night 13 Dublin
day 14 home

Happy to answer any questions

This is great. Thank you. The caves, Dublina and sheep farm look great. Looks like we have a very similar itinerary. I think we will stick with 2 days in Dublin and just hit the highlights and do what we have time and interest for. We can't wait to see the countryside! If we want more city, we will plan come back to Dublin early on the last day....vs taking our time in Connemara.

With your itinerary, do you wish you stayed longer anywhere? If so, where?

Did moving every 2 nights seem too busy? If so, what would you have skipped?

Where was your favorite place in Connemara? W are trying to figure out where to stay up there. We are thinking of changing our Galway and Connemara nights to 1 night in Galway (as a stop from Dingle, Cliffs of Moher to Connemara) and stay 4 nights in Connemara. The only reason we would have stayed 2 nights in Galway is to go to Inishmore. If the weather is bad, we won't do that. It looks like we can easily go to Inishmore from Connemara area if we want to and the weather is nice.

Did you go to Inishmore?

Where did you pick up the rental car? We are planning to get our car on the 3rd day when we leave Dublin, so that we don't have to manage city traffic on the opposite side of the road being jet lagged.

A few specific thoughts based on our experience, May 2018:

1. Kenmare vs. Killarney. Use the Search box above; this is a hot topic on the Forum. Kenmare worked for us. We got a bit lost trying to navigate through Killarney. (Regarding pubs in your inquiry: plenty in Kenmare, some with music.)

2. Cliffs/Moher. We didn't do the walk, instead opting for the sunset cruise out of Doolin Harbor. A relaxing way to end the day before dinner and see the cliffs beautifully illuminated by the setting sun. That said, we found the Cliffs of Kerry (on the Ring near Portmagee) to be far more impressive. If we were doing it over, we'd skip Moher -- but the Forum regulars seem split on this issue.

3. Ashford and the Hawk Walk were among highlights of the trip. We didn't stay at the Castle; stayed in nearby Westport at the very accommodating Willow Lodge, although their 4 rooms might not work for your family.

4. Galway: a morning and lunch was enough for us. Easy to delete if you need to trim your itinerary.

5. Sheep dog demonstration. Big fun. If your final planning has the Connemara leg jammed up, there's a ROK option between Killarney and Kenmare: Kissane Sheep Farm. Beautiful setting; easy to find on the road between Killarney and Kenmare. http://www.kissanesheepfarm.com/ (If you plan to go, check the calendar on their website to time your arrival.)

6. On our trip back to Dublin from Connemara we took a slight detour to visit Irish National Stud (near Kildare), an impressive thoroughbred breeding facility (and gardens) owned, improbably, by the Irish Government. My wife is more of a horse enthusiast than I am, but it was an interesting diversion on the otherwise dull drive back to Dublin.

Bon voyage, it's going to be a great family trip.

We were looking to do Inishmore and rent bikes to tour the island but the weather was terrible so we had to change our plans. If you only spend one night in Galway, you may not have time to see much. We left Dingle at 9 am, stopped at Bunratty Castle ( another great stop!) for a few hours, then on the Cliffs and pulled into Galway around 8. We basically saw nothing of Galway on Day 1 there.

We did pick our car up at the airport on the way out from Dublin. No need to have a car in Dublin at all. Would be more of a nuisance than anything.
It was a pretty busy clip but not too bad... we did change a few things on the fly ( like dropping rock of cashel) but overall I have no regrets. I have been back to Ireland twice since ( Yes, Ireland will do that to you!)
We loved Cong, stayed at the Lodge at Ashford Castle and would highly recommend. We spent 99% of out time on the castle grounds. We did the Hawk Walk which was beyond amazing and also did archery and horse back riding. We also drove out to Kylemore Abbey.

You do want to build some down time into your schedule... we spent hours one night in the pub getting to know an Irish family with kids the same age as ours. We also did a few things that locals recommended.