Northern Ireland

How much time do you have?

We had 14 nights last summer and stuck to the South and got a lot done without feeling too rushed.

A colleague did the Dublin to Dublin loop in 12 days and felt super rushed and missed many sites that they wish they had time for.

What are the absolute musts are your list?

Sharon,
We are planning on 3 weeks in Ireland, give or take a few days :) We are retired so we do not have any time constraints. This will be the 3rd trip we have planned on our own and one thing we have learned from the first 2 (as RS points out) is that you can get sensory overload if you see to many museums, castles, etc. So we are trying to keep that in mind. We would probably be on day 18 when we leave Westport...roughly, we have not made any definite plans yet. We are looking at sites in each area, travel time (as best we can) and trying to have a mix of experiences. ROUGHLY we are planning on (I measure in nights) Dublin (3), Kilkenny (2), Kinsale (2), Kenmare (1), Killarney (2), Dingle (3), Galway (3) we may break the drive up from Dingle to Galway with a night in Doolin and then only spend 2 nights in Galway...still in the planning stages and then Westport (2). We are still working on a few things i.e. we will pick the car up in Dublin and then drive to Powerscourt and Glendalough spending the night in Kilkenny. Do we need another night in Kilkenny? I am asuming we will arrive early evening in Kilkenny so we won't have a lot of time to visit the town but I am not sure if it warrants another night there. I have read mixed reviews.

We did the Dublin to Dublin loop in 15 days in May 2015. Yes we moved every day but we saw most everything we wanted to. We prefer to go far and fast but you will find a lot of naysayers here when it comes to that.
We stayed in Westport then in Donegal and visited Slieve League cliffs and Glenveah National Park and spent a night in Derry. We just had an evening there and walked the wall and looked at the murals.
We toured the Causeway Coast and it was one of our favorite places. We stayed between Cushendun and Cushendall. We spent just a few hours in Belfast then stayed in Ardee to tour the Trim area and in Drogheda to visit Newgrange before our last 2 nights in Dublin.
And Yes I would do it again.

We found 1 night to be enough for Kilkenny. We did the Castle tour and walked the medieval mile.

Sounds like a wonderful trip!

Thank you for the replies!

Carolynn, sounds like you did a "fast and furious" trip :) Just kidding, RS does a 14 days Best of Ireland and he goes from Dublin to Belfast so depending on what you want to see, Dublin to Dublin in 14 days is not that off the books...though we won't be travelling that fast. Would you perhaps remember the name of the hotels/B&B's you stayed in while visiting Northern Ireland? Also, did you drive into Belfast? You said you were only there for a few hours so I am guessing you drove in. Right now that sounds like a scary idea but after driving around Ireland for 2 + weeks perhaps not.

Sharon, It seems like most (but not all ) people agree that one night in Kilkenny is enough. I was considering 2 nights because I am assuming that after visiting Powerscourt and Glendalough it will be 6 ish before we arrive in Kilkenny. I doubt we will get a really early start that day since that will be the day we have to make our way back to the airport, pick up the car, etc. I am hoping to leave the airport by 10 AM.

We also did the a Dublin to Dublin loop back in September/October of 2012, and we only had 15 nights to work with. It felt rushed but definitely doable, even in that time frame, so if you have 3 weeks, I would definitely include Northern Ireland in your itinerary. We stayed in Dublin for 3 nights and then picked up our car and drove north, stopping to see New Grange and Knowth on the way to Belfast. We spent two nights in Belfast so we could see the Titanic Museum and we didn't find the driving or parking too problematic (except that the museum was so new our GPS didn't recognize it so we got lost a couple of times). Our B&B in Belfast was Avenue Guesthouse--quite lovely! From Belfast we drove to Bunbeg in County Donegal--a very long day of driving, although we did stop to see Giant's Causeway on the way. If I had it to do over, I would stop for a night or two in Derry. We drove through very quickly but I understand that there is a lot to see in the area. We had 4 one nighters in a row (Bunbeg, Westport, Galway and Doolin) before stopping in Dingle for two nights and Kinsale for two nights--that was a bit too fast to see all we wanted. We skipped the Ring of Kerry in favor of Slea Head and didn't stop to see anything in Killarney. Both are well worth visiting (we took a 3 week trip in 2015 and concentrated solely on the south and west, so we did get to explore both places). Westport was a great little town with plenty to see within an hour or two of driving and a very good music scene in the evening; Dingle was, of course, our favorite; Galway was OK--much more of a city (it's a university town) with a lot of traffic, but it does make for a good base if you plan to visit Inishmore since a shuttle will take you straight to the ferry); Doolin wasn't a bad place to spend the night, but there wasn't much to the town--I'd say skip it unless you plan to go to Inisheer.

Thank you all for your input! I think we will include Northern Ireland. We are now looking into various areas and what we might be interested in doing there.