suggested home bases in Ireland

What do you want to see or experience in Ireland? What are your expectations? Everyone on this site seem to go to the same places, read back a few pages and copy an itinerary. I'd do Dublin, Cork, Listowel, Galway, Letterkenny and Belfast. We try to avoid anyplace with tour busses, and overly tarted up sites ie Cliffs of Mohr. Don't worry about seeing the "sites" the people and pubs are well worth the visit.

I actually love the Cliffs. Yes, they're highly visited, but they're also breathtaking. We based ourselves in Doolin for a week, since we wanted to see the Cliffs, the Burren, the Aran Islands, and Bunratty Castle. There's not much to the town, but the location was ideal for what we wanted to see.

I'm a huge fan of setting up a home base and day tripping, but Ireland is one of the places where I don't think it works. You will be doing a lot of driving as it is, having to backtrack on a daily basis is going to double your seat time and limit what you can do with your 18 days.

Dennice, I am going to Ireland in June. I used Rick's 3 week itinerary as a basis for my 13 day visit. It gave me an idea of places to use as "home bases". Maybe that will help.

We have tentatively planned a 17 day trip for next spring and I have tweaked our itinerary repeatedly. Right now the plan is fly into Dublin airport, 2 nights near New Grange, 5 nights near Donegal City (self-catering) , 1 night near Letterfrack, l night northern County Clare, 2 nights Dingle, 5 nights Kenmare (self-catering), l night Birr, then fly to London from either Shannon or Dublin. We have been to Ireland twice before so we are skipping the southeast (Glendalough and Kilkenny) and we don't care to visit Dublin. Hope this helps.

Wow! Thanks for all the suggestions. We were trying to choose ively on the sites and the tip about not backtracking everyday was really helpful. (I would rather walk somewhere than ride in a car.) Thanks again,
Dennice