best airport to fly into Ireland from London

Check skyscanner.net for the schedules of "budget" airlines flying between London and Shannon. Most likely, you will find that Aer Lingus has low-cost flights to where you need to be. No sense flying into Dublin and then having to get across the country when you can fly into Shannon.

Thanks for the tip. I was not familiar with skyscanner but it will now be on my list.

You can fly to Shannon on either Aer Lingus or Ryanair. However, if you have the time to drive a few extra hours, take a morning flight to Cork on either Aer Lingus or Ryanair and drive along the coast on the N 71 (Cork-Skibbereen-Bantry-Kenmare-Killarney) and then on to Dingle. The drive between Kenmare and Killarney on the east side of the national park is spectacular.

I flew into Cork from London Stansted on Ryanair and we then rented a car to drive west. Easy to do. Also check Ryanair flights to Shannon. Just remember that on Ryanair you must pack light and are limited to only ONE carry-on item. You cannot have both a purse or computer and a carry-on. If so, make sure you pay the extra checked bag fee in advance. Another thing, non EU passport holders, must get their passports checked at the Ryanair counter before going through security at Stansted and usually the lines are quite long. Often times though, they have an employee/agent walking around in the ticket counter area who can do the passport check and stamp your boarding pass without you having to wait in the lines.

Great advice as usual! We will check to see if we have the time to do trip around the coast and see Kemare-Killarney etc. A long, long time ago we did a bit of the coast and the Ring of Kerry.