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Request Suggestions on 5 Days in Central / Southern Ireland

We're off to Ireland & England in Sept. In Ireland, we will end with 2 nites south of Dublin, just a train jaunt into there.

Upon flying into Dublin, we will stay the first 6 nites at a timeshare near Tulla (just east of Ennis). Since we arrive too early for check-in, I suspect we will stop enroute and check out Galway. Thus, we will then have 5 full days for nice day trips in southern Ireland with our Tulla base. The question is how best to arrange these days. I'm armed with Rick Steves book and printed out the website highlights planning suggestions in the southern areas. Of course we can't see it all.

So, I'm thinking along the lines of days like the following. Please comment on how to better optimize or what to check out enroute:
- Dingle Peninsula (plus a few stops to / from)
- Ring of Kerry, including Kenmare & Killarney
- Waterford (factory/showroom), Kilkenny & Rock of Cashel
- Cobh & Cork (and things along the way)
- 5th day open...specific sites, gardens, town, etc. (I'll skip the Blarney stone)

I think the southeast / east coast area may not make sense for Tulla day trips but we could make a key stop that way from or to Dublin at the start / end of the trip.

Any comments will be much appreciated.

Posted by
2980 posts

From Tulla, any of the day trips you're proposing will entail long days behind the wheel - about 2 hours one way in most cases. Suggest picking up a good road atlas upon arrival and just making the day trip part of the adventure - would be a perfect excuse to explore some of the lesser known byways on your way to and from rather than necessarily being intent on just "getting there", and with the atlas you can plan ahead for stops at scenic and/or historic points of interest enroute.
We greatly enjoyed "Back Roads Ireland" when we were there last year. Provides a more detailed description of scenic drives that we found quite useful. Can buy on Amazon if you're interested.