We have all of our summer trip to SW Ireland planned except for two and a half days from when we leave Dingle to our late afternoon flight out of Dublin. There's a lot of geography between the two places but most of it isn't in the typical tourism guidebooks, so I don't really know where to start. Looking for suggestions of places to look at to visit and/or stay overnight as we work our way back to Dublin.
Posted by
Bellingham, WA
1873 posts
Without knowing where else you will have been, I'd say:
1. A lot of folks mention Adare. Might be a good choice for a lunch stop and stretch of the legs. Still a good way from your destination.
2. Rock of Cashel is a popular spot
3. Overnight in Kilkenny
4. Clonmacnoise, overnight in Athlone. This is on my list.
This isn't a straight route by any means. Of these, only Adare is on a direct route from Dingle to the airport. An option is to use Google Maps to determine the driving route and then zoom in on it to pick a halfway point, stop there for a night and then continue on to Trim or Malahide or Drogheda. Finally, you could power through, drop the car and take the bus into Dublin for the end of your trip. Better yet, drop the car somewhere closer (Tralee?) and take the train into Dublin. You'd pay a fee for the drop-off, of course. If you don't want to stay in Dublin, stay in Drogheda and visit Newgrange. Direct bus from Drogheda to the airport.
Posted by
237 posts
We sort of covered these areas in two directions -- We wandered but one route roughly south (through Kilkenny) and the other on the way back (through Adare). Ideas below:
Really enjoyed our stop in Cahir...castle and also the Swiss cottage felt slightly less touristy than Kilkenny.
Rock of Dunmanse is worth an hour. It's not a huge site and they are currently constructing a new parking lot - We safely parked on road last month. Views are lovely and it wasn't over ridden. Nothing like rock of Cashel which we visited on a different trip.
The cottages in Adare are cute, but we really only browsed the shops and had a nice lunch. If you do stop there I think the walking tour might make the visit more worthwhile.
Castledermot has some really interesting High Crosses if you're into that kind of stop. These are not well visited and we found ourselves there unintentionally.
We had a great dinner (Teach Dolmain, center of town) in Carlow (which I've not seen much on tourist radars), but I think it has potential for some time if you're interested in megalithic tombs (dolmens). That said, we didn't visit them because I didn't know they existed til we were out of daylight. I imagine these are the types of places you will have mostly to yourselves.
Have a great trip!
You could spend hours in Kilkenny - lots to see and plenty of places to stay. Climb the round tower at the cathedral, we've seen so many but this was the only one open.
Posted by
California
35 posts
in the opposite direction, we did a loop between Dublin Airport and Dingle over the course of 2 days,
assuming you are driving, consider:
Drive (3 hrs) from Dingle to tour the Rock of Cashel.
Drive (1 hr) RoC to Kilkenny
stay the night in Kilkenny. Sights to see that late afternoon/evening and next day include Kilkenny Castle, Medieval Mile Museum, Rothe House & Garden, St. Canice’s Cathedral, Butler Gallery.
Drive (1.5 hrs) Kilkenny to Trim. Sights include walk Trim city in evening, then castle in the morning.
Then a short drive (1 hr) to Dublin Airport