Two Week Itinerary - Dublin, Doolin, Dingle, Killarney, Cork

It looks good. A few comments...

Day 5: You won’t have time to visit Bunratty Castle if you need to be at Tralee for 1pm. It is going to take about three hours to drive if going via Limerick. General advice is to allow a couple of hours for the castle.

Although using the Killimer to Tarbert Ferry is much shorter, it will take you at least as long to drive as the roads are very slow and you also need to allow extra for the ferry crossing. You are probably talking about 3-3.5 hours for the trip.

Day 13 Blarney Castle.... This has very mixed reviews - people either love it or hate it... What is the attraction? Is it to kiss the Blarney stone?

Rather than taking the direct route to Cork, have you thought about taking the longer and more scenic route via Kenmare, Glengarriff, Bantry, Skibbereen, Clonakilty to Cork?

If time allows you could take the ferry across to Garinish Island for the gardens.

OR visit Bantry House and gardens

Or do the short drive around Sheep’s Head peninsula. This is well off the usual tourist itinerary and has some lovely scenery.

Love those ideas about the route to Cork. I bet they would all surpass the Blarney Castle (for us). Also, sounds like we should just plan to drive straight from Doolin to Tralee after a leisurely breakfast on day 5. Thanks so much for the feedback!

Glad to be of help. A leisurely drive to Tralee makes a lot of sense. You may also have time to explore Trallee aa bit before your Wildrerness Ireland guide. It's an attractive city and there are ideas for some short walks here.

We're doing a very similar itinerary in June(backed up several times from 2020). Dublin-Doolin-Dingle-Valentia Island-Killarney-Howth and were disconcerted to find out there will/might be disruptions at Trinity College with renovations involving the Long Room/Old Library. Not sure what the current situation will be in 6 months so you might want to check that out as you get closer.

Good point. I’ve read a bit about the restorations at the library. I think they’ll be happening for quite a while, so we’re not prioritizing that particular activity. If it easily fits at the end of day 1, we’ll take a peek. Otherwise, maybe we’ll decide to return in a few years.

Not far from Athlone is Clonmacnoise monastic site which is quite interesting, and I loved wandering the graveyard with all the Celtic crosses.Athlone Castle has an interesting history due to its strategic location right on the river. I loved Kinsale, and walked around the harbour to Charles Fort, and had fish and chips at a place by the water. The Gap of Dunloe tour was quite fun, but it is also the place I got the most wet. I was also there in April, and it rained all day. So much so that our dinghy had to take an alternate route to get onto the lake. This involved passing under an old stone bridge requiring everyone to get out of the boat and help our guide pull the boat through with a rope. So take rain gear if you can.

@Caroline can you let me know what private walking tour you are doing in Dublin? My husband and I are going to Ireland for our 40th Anniversary in June. We plan to do the literary tour at night as well.

Also we plan to rent a car too. Driving north then west. Does the Enterprise rental have lots of options in West Dublin? I'd figure we would need to Uber to the airport to pick up a car? Were flying home to Newark Airport out of Shannon.

Thank you and HAPPY Anniversary!!!

@eeccrodgers, happy anniversary to you, too!! We're using City Unscripted for the private walking tour. I love that they will start/end at our hotel. Also, that we could choose the duration and topics/areas of interest to us. After booking, they sent me an online form to complete that will help the guide know our priorities.

Re: the rental car, I didn't do a ton of research on companies. I ended up with Enterprise simply because they have a location in Tralee as well as Dublin -- which I thought would be convenient in case we need to drop it off during our days on the Dingle hike. If you're headed north out of Dublin, sounds like it would make sense for you to pick up a car at the airport. We could have done that, but we're headed west and the drop off fee was minimal for returning at airport instead of west Dublin. I booked the rental directly through the Enterprise website...which was easy to use in terms of selecting pickup/dropoff points, etc. We opted for the smallest automatic car and added the insurance which we normally forego -- hopefully it won't be needed :)

@Caroline thank you for the speedy reply. I will look into the tour company and rental car too. We want to make sure we have maximum coverage of course, but will also call Chase since I wonder if our CC benefits has full coverage. Enjoy your trip!

@eeccrodgers, best of luck! I think we checked our Citi card coverage and it excluded Ireland.