Visiting Newgrange or Knowth

I was there with my wife in May 2016, and we visited both sites. We stopped there having slept in Trim the previous night (a very nice stop). Each of them is special in its own way, if I had to choose I would say Newgrange because you can go inside. A lot of sources say the exteriors are possibly not that authentic, which kind of lessened the impact for me. Even some of the guide commentary suggested this. But still, I was the first one in to the inner passage at Newgrange on our tour and I was utterly in awe. These thing are older that the pyramids of Egypt, after all. If you don't have a car a tour would probably be the way to go, but I don't know whether it's necessary to pre-book. One thing about a tour (compared to bus tours in other places), you are probably going to get the same amount of time at the sites as you would by visiting with your own car. The amount of time to linger is based upon the guided tour, maybe an hour or so. You're not going to be shortchanged by doing it as a tour from Dublin, because the time you get is the time that they allow on the guided tour that they provide at the sight itself.

Thanks. I should mention that we'll be staying in Drogheda and will have a car.

Do you have Rick's Ireland book? He points out all the sites, or at least he used to. Our first experience with using his guidebooks was on two trips to Ireland in the early '00s. We just showed up at Newgrange and took their guided tour. We were most definitely there in the off season, though - February.

Seeing the interior of Newgrange is fascinating. Since you will be near the visitors center, if you arrive early, you should be able to get a place on the first or second tour without having to pre-book. This would give you time to look around the visitors center. I did this in June with no trouble. If you wait until later in the morning, you may have a long wait to get on a tour.

We were in Ireland in May and visited Bru na Boinne in late May. We went to the visitors center early, possibly arriving around 9:30am (early for us). We were able to visit both sites. They people at the center very helpful in setting up the shuttles for us so that we had about .5 hours before we had to be on the first shuttle which took us to Knowth, upon return to the visitors center our bus was going to Newgrange so we waited on the bus a few minutes and then were taken to Newgrange. Both were very interesting. After that we even had time to drive to Tara which was another great experience.

Hi there,
I am planning on taking Mary Gibbons tour, from Dublin, but I wont have a car. http://newgrangetours.com/

She has specifically timed for New Grange. I would ask her if she gave a discount if you drove your own car.