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Dublin to Cliffs of Moher & Galway City Private Tour by Car
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From €133 per person
This is a full-day private car tour from Dublin - 13 hours on the road with a 5-star driver-guide, calling at some of the west coast’s most remarkable places. Because it’s private, you travel only with your own group and get your guide’s full attention all day.
The first stop is the medieval ruins of Kilmacduagh Monastery and the Burren National Park, a landscape unlike anything else in Ireland - glaciated karst limestone stretching to the horizon, with wildflowers pushing through the cracks in spring and summer.
From the Burren, you head to the Cliffs of Moher. Skip-the-line tickets are included, so you spend your time walking the cliff trail rather than queuing at the ticket office. Standing at the edge, you hear the Atlantic waves working away at the soft shale and sandstone far below - the same dramatic scene used in films like “The Princess Bride” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. Tickets to O’Brien’s Tower are also included; it’s the highest point of the cliffs and on a clear day the views stretch across the Atlantic to the Aran Islands in Galway Bay.
The final stop is Galway City, known for its arts scene, colourful streets, and the striking Galway Cathedral. You’ll have time to find lunch (at your own expense) and pick up a souvenir or two before the drive back to Dublin.
The tour runs for approximately 13 hours. All transport is in a clean, air-conditioned private vehicle. Because it’s a private tour, the itinerary can be adjusted slightly to suit your group’s pace and interests.
Kilmacduagh is the kind of stop that rewards five extra minutes of looking. The round tower stands 34 metres tall and has been leaning very slightly eastward for nine centuries - the bog underneath is shifting on one side and the tower has accepted the slow negotiation with gravity. The monastery circuit is a 1 to 1.5 km loop that takes you from the tower to the roofless cathedral complex to the church of St John, all in about 45 minutes. No entry fee, no queue, no café. Just the stones and the silence that was always the point.
In Galway at the end of the day, you have free time for lunch and a wander. Ard Bia at Nimmo on Quay Street is the locally-recommended restaurant, with a menu that changes with the market. If time is tighter, the Gourmet Tart Company does counter seating and hand pies and the queue moves quickly. For a drink before the drive back, Tigh Coili on Mainguard Street is an Irish language pub with a trad session most nights and the kind of music that’s played because people want to play it. The city’s laneways are the thing - turn off Shop Street at any corner and you’re in a different Galway than the one on the postcards.
The Cliffs of Moher trail is exposed in any wind; a light waterproof is worth having in the bag regardless of the forecast. O’Brien’s Tower is at the northern end of the main cliffs viewing area and the views north toward the Aran Islands are clearest in the morning before any haze builds. Your skip-the-line tickets mean you can spend your time walking, not queuing.
Doolin is 6 km north of the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre and is the village the cliff trail opens out into if you walk north from O’Brien’s Tower. Four pubs, all with trad sessions most nights - Gus O’Connor’s has been pouring since 1832, and McDermott’s up the road often has Dubhlinn (pipes, bouzouki, fiddle) on a Thursday. If the tour schedule allows any flexibility, the harbour at Doolin is worth the detour for ten minutes: that’s where the ferries for the Aran Islands leave from, and the view of the cliffs from sea level is different from anything you see on the trail above.
Liscannor is 8 km south of the visitor centre, on the coast road to Lahinch. It’s the village the cliff walk’s southern route ends at - Hag’s Head and the back-door trail start here. If you have time before or after the cliff stop, Vaughan’s Anchor Inn on Main Street has been doing Michelin-recommended seafood since 1979 and the crab claws off the local boats are the reason the regulars come back.
The Burren and Ballyvaughan: The N67 from Galway to the cliffs runs through Ballyvaughan, which sits where the Burren meets the bay. If the itinerary includes a Burren stop, this is the village. Monk’s Pub at the pier does a chowder heavy with mussels and salmon that’s worth a pause - and the five-minute walk up the pier road shows you why Cromwell’s surveyor was wrong when he wrote that the Burren had not enough wood to hang a man or water to drown him.