hello, we are planning a two week trip to the republic of ireland in may; flying into dub and out of snn. we're trying to follow RS itinerary. we wanted to head south after 3 days in dublin, kilkenny, kindale etc before heading west. i did not want to pick up a rental in car until i left dublin. it looks as if the only two places to do that are Dun laoghaire or waterford. there appears to be nothing between those two towns, after one leaves dublin in the way of rentals. any other suggestions about renting, but not in dub.
Dun Laoghaire is sort of a suburb of Dublin, easily reached by public transport. You shouldn't have any problem renting there.
I believe Enterprise has a location in Bray which is a few miles south of Dun Laoghaire.
Dun Laoghaire is a very nice town with great Dart access to Dublin.There are good places to eat and the B&B we stayed at was excellent. Id consider renting the car there.
I too am renting a car in Dublin in July and was concerned about picking one up in "the city". FWIW, I rented from AutoEurope (Avis was the company they provided me with) and I'm picking up just west of the busiest part of town over by the Kilmainham jail area. While semi-busy, it isn't as bad as the center of town and you are about 5km/3m from the M50, which is a ring road/highway around the outskirts of town with connections to the SE part of the country, etc. I chose this over the other areas as I didn't want to hassle with buses, etc. and dragging luggage. I heard that a cab from the Temple Bar area where I'm staying to the car rental is about €10 which doesn't seem too bad to me.
I rented through Auto Europe and picked up my car on the way out of Dublin. Just took a taxi there, then asked for the shortest way out of the city. Did that twice. It worked well.