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Fourteen days, the whole island, driven in one loop — with the timings that decide whether a day is wonderful or spent in traffic. Print it, scribble on it, ignore half of it. That’s what it’s for.
The route, day by day
Arrive Dublin
—
Don’t hire a car today. You’ll be jet-lagged in a right-hand-drive car in a city with tram tracks. Collect it on Day 3 on the way out. Walk, eat early, sleep.
Stay: Dublin city centre, 2 nights
Dublin
On foot
Kilmainham Gaol books out weeks ahead — reserve before you fly or you won’t get in. Trinity’s Book of Kells at 08:30 or skip it. Skip the Guinness Storehouse queue; the Jameson tour is better and half the crowd.
Stay: Dublin
Dublin → Glendalough → Kilkenny
2h driving
Collect the car in the suburbs, not the city. Glendalough by 09:00 — it’s a monastic valley, not a photo stop, and it empties as fast as it fills. Kilkenny by late afternoon.
Stay: Kilkenny, 1 night
Kilkenny → Cobh → Kinsale
2h 30m
Cobh was the Titanic’s last port and the emigration museum there is the most affecting hour on this whole route. Kinsale for dinner — it’s the best eating town in Ireland and worth building the day around.
Stay: Kinsale, 2 nights
West Cork loop
3h, unhurried
Mizen Head, Barleycove beach, and the Beara road if the weather holds. This is the day most itineraries cut. Don’t. It’s the Ireland people imagine before they arrive.
Stay: Kinsale
Kinsale → Ring of Kerry → Kenmare
4h with stops
Leave by 08:00. Drive it anticlockwise like the buses, but two hours ahead of them. Ladies View empty, Sneem before the coaches. By the time the convoy catches you, you’re gone.
Stay: Kenmare or Killarney
Dingle Peninsula
3h
Slea Head Drive is better than the Ring of Kerry and takes half the time. Do it clockwise, stop at Dunquin pier, eat in Dingle town, and stay for the trad session.
Stay: Dingle, 1 night
Dingle → Cliffs of Moher → Doolin
3h + ferry
Take the Shannon car ferry at Tarbert — it saves ninety minutes and it’s a nicer hour than the motorway. Cliffs of Moher after 16:00, when the tour buses have gone and the light is better.
Stay: Doolin, 2 nights
The Burren
2h
Limestone moonscape, Poulnabrone dolmen, and the best trad music in the country at O’Connor’s or McGann’s after dark. A short driving day on purpose — you’ll need it by now.
Stay: Doolin
Doolin → Galway → Connemara
2h 30m
Galway for lunch and the buskers on Shop Street. Then Connemara: Kylemore Abbey, the Sky Road at Clifden, and bog roads with nobody on them.
Stay: Clifden, 2 nights
Connemara
2h
Killary Fjord, Roundstone, and the beaches at Dog’s Bay — white sand and turquoise water that no one believes is Ireland until they see it.
Stay: Clifden
Clifden → Westport → Sligo
3h
Croagh Patrick if you’ve the legs for it, Westport for lunch. Then Yeats country and the great flat table of Benbulben.
Stay: Sligo, 1 night
Sligo → Donegal → Derry
3h 30m
Slieve League cliffs are three times the height of Moher with a fraction of the people. Then across the border to Derry and its walls.
Stay: Derry, 1 night
Causeway Coast → Belfast
3h
Giant’s Causeway early, Dunluce Castle, the Dark Hedges, Carrick-a-Rede if you’ve a head for it. Belfast for the Titanic Quarter, then the motorway back to Dublin.
Stay: Belfast or Dublin
What we’d skip
- The Blarney Stone. A ninety-minute queue to kiss a rail that a hundred people kissed before you. The castle grounds are lovely; the stone is a tax on your afternoon.
- Killarney town in July. Beautiful national park, jarveys and gift shops in the town itself. Stay in Kenmare instead — twenty minutes away and a different world.
- Doing both the Ring of Kerry and Slea Head in one day. People try. They see neither.
- Booking a castle hotel for the whole trip. One night is a memory. Seven is a budget gone with nothing to show for it.
Six things worth knowing before you drive
- Hire the smallest car you can live with. Boreens are one lane with stone walls. Every inch you didn’t pay for is an inch you don’t have to squeeze past a tractor.
- Take the excess insurance. Irish hire-car excess is famously brutal and wing mirrors are famously vulnerable.
- Northern Ireland is pounds, not euros. Same island, different currency, and no border post to remind you.
- Fuel up before the peninsulas. Beara, Slea Head and parts of Donegal have long stretches with nothing open on a Sunday.
- Book Kilmainham and Skellig Michael before you fly. Both sell out. Skellig also cancels for weather roughly one day in three, so pick an early date and keep a spare.
- It will rain. Not all day, most likely. Bring a proper jacket, not an umbrella — the wind takes umbrellas.
This is the outline. The book is the whole thing.
The Ultimate Ireland Travel Guide takes every day above and gives you the full version —
where to eat, what each stop costs, the wet-weather alternative, and the local places that never make the
tour-bus lists. Kindle and paperback.