Please help me plan a 7 day Ireland Itinerary to include Giant's Causeway, Galway, Dingle, and Dublin?

Question

We are renting a car (won't have one for Dublin, of course) and need best routes/itinerary/suggestions for what towns/cities to choose for overnight stays. Many thanks!

Answer 1

Day 1-2: Fly into Dub, check into hotel, sleep off jet lag, walk round city, shop and do the touristy stuff there. Alternatively fly into Belfast international airport and do your touristy stuff around Belfast.

Day 3: Early morning.Get your car and drive to Giant's causeway(4 hours or so frm Dub.Not far frm Belfast) and spend afternoon there. Stop off in Ardee/Monaghan in Co. Monaghan for lunch on way. Later drive over to Donegal (about 90 mins?)and spend night in a B+B- Go to Letterkenny for dinner, hotel/ B+B.

Day 4: Spend morning and afternoon in Donegal. Get up early and go to the north or west coast for a nice beach or Glenveagh national park or somewhere. Drive to Galway (about 5 hours?)that late afternoon. Look at scenery like Ben Bulben in Sligo and fields of Mayo,Galway when driving . For a break stop off in Sligo to see Yeats grave (wooo). Have lunch in Sligo town or Castlebar or Westport, County Mayo if you need a break. Stay in hotel in Galway city or a B+B outside city that night. Quality Hotel in Oranmore is nice,10min outside city.

Day 5: Do the touristy stuff in West of Ireland. Go to somewhere  or the River Shannon or just drive round county Galway. Come back to Galway city. If its thurs or fri there's probably late night shopping or else just have dinner, go for a walk and go to sleep.

Day 6: Get up early and hit the road for Kerry.(Couple hours?)Stop off/take a detour to places like The Burren in Co. Clare on the way. Head to Dingle and do your thing there. Go see Fungi the dolphin if he's still alive! Find a nice B+B and chill.

Day 7: Drive to Dublin again (about 5 hours?), stop off in Kilkenny or somewhere for a dander, buy your souvenirs, leave off car, go to airport and fly home!

Answer 2

Portrush is a good town to stay in if your traveling up to the giants causeway or  Portstewert aswell =)

Answer 3

Are you going to fly in and out of Dublin?

Answer 4

Don't be silly - seven days to do all that? You'll be in the car for most of the time so! Do either Galway and Dingle or Dublin and the Giant's Causeway. Much easier on the nerves and the stress levels. Alternatively take 2 weeks to do all 4 places.

What many visitors don't realise when they are planning their trip is that, while Ireland is a small country and in theory it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to drive from Dublin to Dingle, in practice it is very different. Ireland simply does not have the infrastructure for large volumes of high-speed vehicular traffic. It takes 5 hours to travel from Dublin to Dingle town at least. Not including stops.