No car, 5ish days with a 4 year-old

Public transport in Ireland isn’t speedy.

IMHO having driven around the island twice ( solo ) you need a car.

Pick up a copy of the RS guidebook. Read it. Will help you define an itinerary for your family.

Thanks! I'm on the waitlist on the library for the book, but am about to pull the trigger on flights. However, I don't want to do the trip if I'm going to have to subject my child to being in the car a lot :( The car is not a part of our daily lives here where we live.

Travel planning always involved trade-offs. You'll need to weigh your options carefully, considering things like: what specifically about Ireland interests you? Where can you find that? How easy/hard is it to reach those places by whatever options are available or that you choose?

You can do many parts of Ireland via public transportation, but once you get very far out from the major cities, it becomes pretty inefficient (time-wise). If you had 5 or 6 weeks there, you would have many more reasonable options for getting around to many places without a car. If you are constrained to just 5 or 6 days, without a car, your options will be very limited. Not "no options at all" but pretty limited ones.

For some of us, the best, most interesting parts of Ireland are far from the cities, and difficult (some would say impractical) to reach without a car. You either need more time, or a car (or both) to really do those places. It's easy and quick to get between Dublin and Galway, but for me, neither was really a highlight, they were pleasant enough, but more like way-stations on the way to (what for me) was the really good stuff. You could connect Dublin and Galway, or Dublin and Belfast, maybe including Derry/Londonderry. Still, that's a lot of time on trains and buses and not a lot of time being there.

Before you pull the trigger on the flights (unless they're fully refundable) you really should take a look at what there is to see/do in Ireland, how long it takes to get to the places you are interested in, and how the tradeoffs you make would impact your trip.

Until you get your hands on a guidebook, you can start here: Ireland Travel Guide by Rick Steves

Finally - "4 or 5 days" is just not a lot of time to see Ireland - or any country - even if you had a car (or a helicopter) to get you around. Any chance you could extend your time there? Just something to consider.

Good luck.

So 5-6 days minus 2 days in Dublin leaves you 3-4 days. And you have additional factors to balance.

Let’s say you actually have 6 nights. I might suggest one additional stop - maybe Killarney for 3 nights and Dublin for 3 nights. Itinerary might depend on your 4 year old’s travel tolerance and your schedule. (i.e. where you are arriving from and time of departure flight). You can train or bus (or fly) to Killarney from Dublin and there is a lot of outdoor activity available, plus plenty of places to eat.

Options to consider:
2 nights Dublin, 3 nights Killarney, 1 night Dublin for your return flight.
Head on to Killarney immediately for 3 nights Killarney, then return to Dublin for 3 nights.

With so few days, and spending two of them in Dublin, you won’t be able to cover a lot ground without a car. But, there are lots of guided day trips available that will allow you to get out of the city, and see lots of sights. From Dublin you can take a day trip to Newgrange which will likely include other stops, or you could take a day trip to Glendalough. You might even hop on the train to Kilkenny or even Belfast for a day. After your time in Dublin you could hop on the train to Galway and spend half of your days there taking guided day trips to the Cliffs of Moher/Burren, Connemara region, or the Aran Islands. Galway is close by train, and there is a bus that goes directly there from the airport so you could actually start in Galway, and return to Dublin for a couple days before you fly home. Travelling by public transit means you have to spend more time planning and looking at time tables to make the most efficient use of your time. For instance, if you take the train from Dublin to Galway in the morning you won’t arrive in Galway in time to join a day tour so it may make more sense to take the train the evening before. You could spend your entire time in Dublin and not be bored, and see a fair bit using day trips. If you want to split your time between two places I would choose either Galway or Belfast as they are closest by train. I would not travel too far south as it will eat up too much of your time getting there and back. One other option you might consider is flying into Dublin and out of Belfast, using that as your second location. This would save you the time of returning to Dublin to fly home.

I would think that trips on a slow bus with a 4 yr old would be difficult. I don't know what the public transportation options are to Glendalough. We went there on a group bus tour. I checked several and they do seem to allow children over 2 years old, but will your child be willing to sit in his/her seat on a long bus trip?

I would suggest landing in Dublin and taking the train to Kilkenny. I think your 4 year old would do well on a shorter train ride. Spend 2-3 nights in Kilkenny, then return to Dublin for the last 3 nights.