September 2015 Itinerary Advice

Your itinerary looks good, nothing seems excessive, you can fit more in on a few days and stioll not be trying too much. I can't opine on the Aran Islands day as I've never done that. Day 9 may have quite a bit of free time. Salthill to Clonmacnoise is about 1.5 hrs (less if you take the M6) and you probably won't need more than 2 hours there. You might consider staying in Dublin on day 11, Dublin to Powerscourt is an hour or less.

When you are staying in Salthill, I would highly recommend driving to the Cliffs of Moher (you won't be that far), and maybe driving through and exploring the Burren.

Archimedes is right, you will have lots of extra time on Day 9, Clonmacnoise is great, but it won't take you that long. I would recommend maybe going to Tullamore - the town itself isn't that impressive, but the Tullamore D.E.W. center is fun and you can try the whiskey!, and there are castles nearby. Also, unlike most of Ireland, the drive from Galway to Dublin is all highway - you could go straight to Dublin if you wanted to instead of staying in Athlone. This would make your drive the next day to Glendalough and Powerscourt much easier. And then just stay in Dublin for your last three nights instead of Athlone, near Powerscourt, and then in Dublin. Just a recommendation.

Not considering visiting Belfast? Lots to see and do there. The seafood chowder at Mourne's is alone worth a visit.

Thanks everyone for all the input. I appreciate all of it! We are welcome to more advice and tips!
Claudia - We are on the fence about Belfast. Would love to hear some recommendations of what to see there (except for anything Titanic related, that doesn't peak our interest.) We also aren't big seafood lovers. However, we could certainly put a stop in Belfast into our itinerary.

We will probably take your advice and push on to Dublin to make that our overnight base for the last few days of our trip.

There is a wonderful B&B in County Wicklow that you could use for a base. It's Koliba Country Home. Rose and Brendan are the hosts and you will not find more gracious hosts. We spent one night there and I wish we had stayed more and used it as our base.
http://www.koliba.com/

Just a couple tips. First, the drive up to Slieve League, I'm not trying to scare you, just a warning, the road up, after closing the gate, is very narrow and windy. And the drop-off to the sea can be a bit unnerving. But once up there you'll probably have the place to yourself.

After spending the night at Ashford, you're going to love it there, I suggest instead of driving straight to Galway that you head to Kylemore or Westport and drive down to Clifden and thru Connemara, Roundstone, Spiddle, into Salthill.

You can take a boat to Kilronan, Inishmore, Aran Islands from Rossaveel and spend the day. I think the boat heading back is around 5:30. But if you can swing it, spend a night in a B&B there in Kilronan. You won't regret it.

Have a great trip.