Has anyone hired a driver & vehicle in Ireland? We are a group of 6 - 10 adults traveling to Ireland the end of April beginning of May. Question: If there ends up being 10 adults do you recommend hiring a driver & vehicle? If so, does anyone knows how I would do this? If there are 6 – 8 we will rent two cars. We are in the planning phase and before we book we want to make sure this will all work with two or more cars. We can reverse the itinerary and add 1 or 2 more days. Day 1 &2: Arrive Dublin, sleep Dublin 2 nights Day 3: Leave Dublin early for Kilkenny, Powerscourt & Glendalorgh .Sleep Kilkenny 1 night Day 4: Leave Kilkenny early for Cashel & Cahir Castle. Overnight in Kinsale Day 5 & 6: Leave early for Dingle, Dingle Peninsular. Sleep in Dingle 2 nights. Day 7 & 8: Galway, via Burren and Cliffs of Moher. Sleep in Galway 2 nights. Or two nights in another town. Day 9: Leave Galway early for a late flight from Shannon. Thanks for all your help and suggestions. First time in Ireland for all.
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Posted by
Downingtown, USA
2433 posts
Can't help with driver but like the plan to fly into Dublin and out of Shannon, that is the best. If you rent the car for four in each car, be sure you have a car large enough with room for luggage. I would suggest Doolin rather than Galway. We loved it, it is smaller than a village, really. From there you can get to the Aran Islands. You said you can add one or two more nights, we love Ireland so if you can add extra days please do so. If you are renting a car, do not so for Dublin, you won't need it there. Enjoy.
Posted by
douglassville, PA, USA
7 posts
Last April (2010) my husband, another couple and I spent 2 weeks in Ireland. We hired a driver/guide through the travel company Authentic Ireland. That was one of the smartest moves we have ever made. We had a Mercedes mini van that was very comfortable and we had plenty of room for all our luggage. We limited ourselves to one carry on and one large bag each. We have driven ourselves through many European countries without any trouble but because Ireland travels on the "other" side of the road, we felt that it would be much more enjoyable for all of us to let a native drive. Our guide/driver, Martin was fantastic. He was professional at all times, yet so personable. I believe we saw places that are rarely visited by many tourists just because Martin had a lot of connections throughout the country. I highly recommend Authentic Ireland tours, especially because our group wanted to visit some out of the way places and the travel agent at AU worked with us to make it happen. Ireland is great fun. We'll be going back soon and will be working with AU to make another fantastic trip.
susan