Hello! My husband and I are Americans, but we have become recent residents of Belfast. We have plans to travel to the west coast around Easter time because my husband has time off from work then. I am wondering what happens in Ireland during Easter (specifically Good Friday, Saturday, and Easter Sunday)? I know for Christmas, everything shut down for like two days. Does anything like that happen around Easter time? I don't want to take our trip and find everything closed.
Our tentative plan is to leave Belfast on Good Friday (April 19) and drive to Galway. Spend the night in Galway and then the next day (Saturday, April 20) take a ferry to the Aran Islands and probably spend the night there. That takes us to Easter Sunday. After returning to the mainland, we will continue driving south down the west coast for about a week, stopping at various sites along the way, such as the Cliffs of Moher. Toward the end of that week (around April 27), we will head back to Belfast (along a different route). I'm sure the week after Easter will be fine, but it's Easter weekend that concerns me. Would that be a suitable time to visit the Aran Islands? Will Galway be alive with trad music on the evening of Good Friday? Any suggestions regarding that holiday time would be very helpful. Thank you!
Posted by
Rochester, NY
15 posts
We traveled the west coast during Easter, and the only problem we had was on Good Friday. Most of the restaurants and pubs were closed. Finding a place to eat was a little difficult. We were in Doolin on Holy Saturday and the pubs were packed. Our B&B host told us everyone was making up for the pubs being closed on Good Friday. We did not have any issues on Easter while we were in Dingle. Everything was open and lively.
Posted by
OP
Belfast, UK
13 posts
This is very helpful! Thank you!