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Planning a First Trip to Ireland with Kids and Teens: Our Two Week Itinerary

December 28, 2019 by kokotg Leave a Comment

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Travel dates: June 16-30, 2019

Hey, I finally get to talk about Ireland!

The Ireland part of our trip was a little more challenging to plan than the England part. It was, for one thing, a bit longer at 14 days versus 10, and it also involved more people, specifically Dave’s sister and her family of four. Amy and I spent a whole lot of time planning in the months leading up to the trip, trying to come up with an itinerary that would work well for everyone in the group (which was supposed to include Dave’s parents as well, but they ended up being unable to make the trip). And I think we did a pretty good job, for two people who’d never been to Ireland before.

I mean, we made sure we saw plenty of sheep, and that’s really what Ireland’s all about, right?

sheep in Connemara

So like with my post about England, I’ll first do a rundown of what we did day by day and then talk about a few trip planning topics. And, as with my post about England, I’m definitely not presenting myself as an expert on Ireland trip planning…just sharing my thoughts on what worked (and didn’t) for us as we planned our first trip.

Day 1: Dublin

This was mostly our travel day from the UK (by ferry) and Amy and Craig’s travel day from California. So a very long day for all (and a lot of time changing for some). We got to our lovely rental house in Dublin a couple of hours after Amy and Craig and we all headed out to find something to eat. Then we got poured on (the most rain we saw for our entire 2 weeks in Ireland) and found a lot of places already closed.

Dublin ferry

Day 2: Dublin

Lots of walking! Through St. Stephen’s Green, Trinity College, to the river, to Temple Bar

Book of Kells

Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship tour

dinner at The Old Storehouse

a touristy part of Dublin

Day 3: Dublin

National Gallery of Ireland

National Library of Ireland (Yeats Exhibition)

Dublinia

Christ Church Cathedral

Lots more walking: Dublin Castle and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral


Day 4: Dublin to Killarney

Pick up rental cars at Dublin Airport

Stop in Adare for lunch at Aunty Lena’s (and Adare Courthouse museum)

…and a tour of Adare Desmond Castle

Check in to Castlerosse in Killarney

Adare Desmond Castle

Day 5: Killarney

Rented bikes and rode to Muckross Abbey and Muckross Traditional Farms

Dinner at Castlerosse Restaurant

Day 6: Killarney

Walk to Killarney House from Castlerosse

Hike to Torc Waterfall

Dinner at Uptown Restaurant in Killarney

Day 7: Killarney

Boat ride to Innisfallen

Drive to Ladies View with some stops along the way

Day 8: Killarney to Oughterard

stop a very rainy Lough Gur on the way

check into rental house in Oughterard

dinner at Powers Thatch

Day 9: Oughterard

Brigit’s Garden

Aughnanure Castle

dinner at Camp Street Cafe

Brigit's Garden, Co. Galway

Day 10: Oughterard

Galway day: lots of wandering, Galway City Museum, cathedral

lunch at BoTown

ice cream at Murphy’s

Day 11: Oughterard

Connemara beach day: one near Ballyconeely then and Dog’s Bay

Take out from Highlander Takeaway

Day 12: Oughterard

ferry to Inisheer

lunch at Tigh Ruairi

walk around Island: Plassey wreck and O’Brien’s Castle

Day 13: Oughterard

Dan O’Hara’s Homestead Farm

Day 14: Oughterard

Corrib Cruises boat ride to Ashford Castle with stop at Inchagoill

Hawk Walk at Falconry School at Ashford Castle

Dinner at Powers Thatch again

 

Okay, now for some thoughts on Ireland planning and on Ireland in general.

Deciding where to go: This was a first trip to Ireland for all of who ended up making it there, but Dave’s parents had been a couple of times before. So that drove our planning in large part; we could have picked plenty of different base camps and had an amazing time. But, since ANYWHERE was going to be new and fabulous for us, we focused on places Dave’s parents hadn’t been or wanted to see again. We decided on three different stops for the two weeks so that we’d have some downtime built in and not be moving around constantly.

Everyone arrived in Dublin, and we wanted to spend some time there, but I’d also read that you don’t need a ton of Dublin time. We planned 3 nights/2 full days there, and that worked well for us. Then we did four nights in Killarney, partially because it’s beautiful there and there’s a ton to do in the area and partially because Dave’s mom wanted to look into some family history there. I’d read some things beforehand that cautioned against staying in Killarney when exploring this corner of Ireland and opting for somewhere less touristy instead…but I’ll say that for a first trip, and traveling with kids, having easy access to some big, kid friendly attractions and to plenty of shopping and restaurants was handy.

We did the less touristy thing a bit more with our next (and longest) stop and spent a full week in Oughterard in County Galway. We knew we wanted Connemara because Dave’s parents hadn’t been there before (and his cousin had taken a trip there recently and highly recommended it), but we spent a long time trying to decide exactly where in Connemara to stay. We considered a few different places farther out on the peninsula, but ultimately ended up in Oughterard for a few reasons: it had a couple of different house rental options that worked well for our group. It was very centrally located compared to most other places we were looking–just half an hour into Galway, but with pretty easy access to all of Connemara, and also right on Lough Corrib, a pleasant boat ride away from Ashford Castle. In short, there were things to see in pretty much any direction without needing to do any super long drives. And, finally, the town of Oughterard itself was great–we could walk into town from our rental house and there were a number of restaurants and plenty of shops for groceries and souvenirs.

Deciding where to stay: We spent a long time figuring out the best places to stay, but this was, of course, largely because we had such a big group. We stayed at rental houses in Dublin and Oughterard and in a hotel that had self-catering cottages in Killarney. Generally speaking, we found prices pretty reasonable outside of Dublin and very expensive in Dublin itself, at least for what we were looking for.

We found our Dublin house on Airbnb, and it was HUGE and really nice. The kids appreciated the pool table:

It was in the Portobello neighborhood, which was fairly well located, but not particularly touristy, as far as we could tell. We could have taken buses, but Dublin public transportation kind of overwhelmed us, so we walked A LOT instead. There was ample shopping and restaurants in the immediate area, including the Eatyard, a courtyard with several food trucks. We tried to eat there our first night only to find everything closed or closing by the time we got there in the pouring rain. But it looked really cool. And some people managed to get food before everything closed up.

In Killarney, we stayed at Castlerosse resort, where there were bunnies:

bunny in Killarney

The plan here was to have two 2 bedroom cottages for our family and Amy’s family and then a hotel room for Dave’s parents. We had trouble finding a house that would work for the whole group close in to Killarney or we would have gone that route, but this worked out well, too. Our cottage was 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a full kitchen, and a big living room/dining area. It was a bit dated, and the beds were not the best, but we were pretty comfortable there.

Castlerosse is a couple of miles from town, and there’s a lovely paved path that takes you there. One day we rented bikes (available at the resort) and rode into town and then to the national park. And one day some of us walked to town, and that…was lovely, but took longer than we expected. Traffic in Killarney was sort of awful, so it would have been nice to be a bit closer so we could get to restaurants and shopping more easily. Although when we did drive in and park, it was easier to find parking than we expected. There are a couple of restaurants in the resort, and this was very handy when we were exhausted and not up for going into town. Also, the views are pretty fabulous:

And I got a pretty beer:

There was lots of room for the kids to play outside:

And then Oughterard! In Oughterard we stayed at Wellpark House, which was the quirkiest place we stayed on the whole trip by far. It’s a big Georgian house that sleeps up to 12, and has a different floral wallpaper in pretty much every room. I’ll be honest: when we first walked in, we weren’t entirely sure about Wellpark House, but it definitely grew on us as the week went on, and I think we all have fond memories of it now. Abe asks regularly when we can go back.

The good: the house was plenty big enough for all of us, with lots of common space for people to spread out. The kitchen was well equipped and had a huge table with room for everyone; it was my favorite room. There were two working fireplaces that came with a supply of peat to burn, which didn’t seem to give off much heat but made things smell very nice. The house is a quick walk to town, which I always love. Huge and lovely outdoor area. And the outdoor area came complete with the neighbor’s extremely friendly cat who liked to hang out right outside the door and beg us to come out and pay attention to him (and maybe give him some treats). We called him Rashers, because he really like the bits of Irish bacon we fed him:

The less than ideal: The mattresses and bedding were not great–thin pillows, older bedding–nothing that was just awful, but if you’re picky about that sort of thing this might not be the best place for you. Like a lot of houses in Ireland (but none of the others we stayed in) you have to feed euros into a meter to pay for electricity, and gas for heat is also charged separately. We didn’t need to run the heat much and the electricity turned out to be pretty inexpensive (I don’t remember exactly what we paid, but certainly under 20 euros for the week), so it wasn’t really a big deal, but it was something that I was a little nervous about going into the week. The wifi wasn’t very strong (it worked fairly well in the room closest to the router, but was inconsistent everywhere else in the house). And the taller members of my family would like me to note that there’s a low doorway going into the kitchen, and you have to be careful not to hit your head.

But overall we had a great stay here, and sort of came to regard the things I’ve listed under less than ideal as part of the house’s quirky charm.

Planning day by day:

We had a general list of things that we wanted to see in each place we stayed, but there was really only one day (that I can remember) that we had completely planned in advance: that was our hawk walk day, since the hawk walk could sell out and there were a lot of moving parts that had to fit together (like making sure we had a boat to take to get to the hawk walk). Aside from that we mostly had lists of things that we were considering in each place, but figured out what we would do then day by day. We hadn’t really been thinking of going to the Aran Islands at all, for example, until a couple of days before when we realized an Inisheer day trip was totally doable. We had been a little worried about spending a whole week on Connemara, but I was surprised to find that not only was there plenty to do, but there were things we would have liked to see but didn’t get to.

 

General Ireland Thoughts: 

*Driving in Ireland was exactly how I expected it to be, which is to say it was often stressful and occasionally terrifying. The roads are very, very narrow in more rural areas and the speed limits are shockingly high. There are plenty of places where it’s impossible for two cars to pass each other and sometimes there’s a tour bus coming straight at you in these places. There are more places where you’re positive it’s impossible for two cars to pass each other until you see it happen. If you read my England posts, you know that Dave lost his drivers license on the plane over to England, so I ended up having to drive there. We managed to get a replacement while we were in Dublin, and I was SO HAPPY not to be the driver in Ireland. That said, you really need to rent a car (or hire a driver, if you’re feeling rich) to fully explore in Ireland.

*Car rentals are almost as scary to navigate as the roads in Ireland. There are plenty of other posts out there on the internet about things to watch out for, so I won’t rehash. The main thing we did was have a Chase Sapphire because it’s one of the few cards that insures you for car rentals in Ireland. I will also say, though, that in the end we didn’t have any trouble (much like with the scary roads).

*It stays light absurdly late in Ireland in summer. This is, of course, something you can look up yourself if you’re planning a trip and maybe you have, but it took me by surprise. We live somewhere where it stays light pretty late in summer because we’re so far west in our time zone….but pretty late to me means past 9. It’s not totally dark at 11 in Ireland in June. Ireland’s latitude in general kind of blows me away because it’s about the same as Newfoundland, even though its climate is much milder. The first Europeans showing up places like Massachusetts must have been so surprised by all that snow! I guess? Or maybe they knew to expect it somehow. Anyway.

*Speaking of climate, we got very lucky with weather while we were there and only had significant rain a few times. But when we did encounter it, we found that we hadn’t come very well equipped for it at all. Milo and Gus’s rain jackets were not exactly waterproof, for example. And none of ours were particularly great. And I somehow decided not to bring rain boots for Abe, even though he LOVES boots, and even though I had neglected to pack them when we went to Nova Scotia the summer before, too, which resulted in buying rain boots for him at a Nova Scotia Walmart, which STILL FIT HIM when we went to Ireland. But still I didn’t pack them. Amy, on the other hand, reports that she packed well for the rain but then didn’t make her kids actually wear the rain gear she had brought on rainy days. So, with a couple of exceptions, it worked out fine for us, but only because we happened to have such a good stretch of weather while we were there.

Okay. Much more to come about all the places we went soon!

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Filed Under: 2019 UK/Ireland Trip, Ireland

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