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Rental cars in Galway for trip along the Wild Atlantic Way

Posted by (Webster Groves, Missouri, USA) on

Greetings,

We are traveling to Ireland in October for 2 weeks. We hope to rent a car in Galway (training from Dublin) to drive to Clifden, Westport and return to Galway to drop it off. We have always used public transport on our previous trips to Ireland, but know that a car would provide opportunities to visit the more rural areas and coastline of Western Ireland

Wanted to hear from anyone who has rented in Galway: what companies, customer experience, roads to take to the cities listed, etc.

Also, we are over 75 so I understand that we will need health certification in order to rent. Do some rental companies require any additional requirements for seniors?

Thank you for any assistance,

Slainte

Posted by
623 posts

In 1997, I rented a car in Galway from Dan Dooley. Turns out, Dooley is now Enterprise: https://www.enterprise.com/en/car-rental/dan-dooley.html. I also rented from a Dooley outlet in Cork four years prior.

A Dooley/Enterprise associate met me near Eyre Square -- the center of Galway -- to give me the car and keys with a detailed roadmap.

I had the car for a week, making it all the way up to Donegal and Northern Ireland, but for returning it in Galway. If you drive into Northern Ireland, a Republic of Ireland license plate is fine. I took mostly prominent roads. Everything went off without a hitch.

If you're American, Canadian or European, be ready to drive on the left side of the road in Ireland. This includes roundabouts, rather than stoplights, but there are stoplights in cities.

Posted by
8090 posts

We rented from Enterprise in Galway in 2019, after busing from the Dublin Airport. We eventually returned our car in Dublin, after staying in Galway, then one night on Inishmore Island (flew on the Aer Arran plane - more reliable than ferries to the Aran Islands), then a stay in Clifden, then worked our way clockwise through more of north Ireland and Northern Ireland to Trim, finishing in Dublin. The N59 road was a big part of that trip. We also actually stayed on Achill Island, west of Westport.

Clifden’s got the Sky Road loop out of town - https://www.theirishroadtrip.com/sky-road-clifden/.

Also, a particularly worthwhile activity was the Killary Fjord boat tour https://killaryfjord.ie/, from the dock off the N59, a mile or two west of Leenaun. It’s the only fjord in Ireland. Onboard, we had steamed mussels that are farmed in the scenic waters of the fjord.

Neither of us is over 75 yet, so haven’t dealt with car rental age policies.

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