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2-Day Connemara and Galway Bay Rail Tour from Dublin
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From €410 per person
Take the train from Dublin to Galway Bay, stay overnight in Galway, then spend Day 2 exploring Connemara by coach with a local guide. You’ll pass through peat bogs, past thatched-roof cottages and under mountain ranges that make this corner of Ireland feel like it belongs to another era.
One of the highlights is Kylemore Abbey, the stunning Victorian castle-monastery set against the Connemara hills. Your entrance to the abbey and its Walled Victorian Garden is included.
Check in at the Customer Service Desk at Dublin Heuston Station 20 minutes before departure. The Railtours Ireland representatives will be waiting with your travel pack in bright yellow jackets. The tour returns to Dublin at approximately 21:45 on Day 2.
The tour runs daily except Sunday, with a maximum of 10 people. Service animals are welcome and it’s suitable for all fitness levels. Conducted in English.
If you’re booking a double occupancy room, note your preference for a double or twin bed in the Special Requirements field when booking (subject to availability). Occasionally it may be necessary to alter certain itineraries for operational reasons.
Your night in Galway: the train arrives into Galway city, which is ten minutes on foot from the station to the medieval core. Shop Street and Quay Street are the main drag, but the best of the city is in the laneways between them - narrow, slightly crooked, worth getting lost in. Ard Bia at Nimmo on Quay Street is the kind of place that changes its menu with the season and keeps you thinking about what you ate. For trad music, Tigh Coili has sessions nightly and the players are there because they want to be, not because the venue requires it.
Getting your bearings: Galway is also the access point for the Aran Islands - Rossaveal pier is 40 minutes west by car, and the ferry to Inis Mór takes about an hour. That’s a separate trip, but worth knowing about if you’re extending beyond this tour. The city’s medieval quarter is small enough to cover on foot in a couple of hours, including the Claddagh neighbourhood where the famous ring design originated. See Galway for a fuller picture of the city.
The Connemara day: Kylemore Abbey sits in the Connemara hills 10km west of Letterfrack, the small village at the entrance to Connemara National Park. The Gothic facade reflected in Pollanabawn Lake in front of it is the photograph, but the Walled Victorian Garden is the better visit - four acres, restored over many years, with a head gardener and a kitchen garden. It’s quieter than the abbey itself and worth taking time in. Letterfrack itself is the base for Diamond Hill, a 7km loop to 442 metres with the Twelve Bens and Killary Harbour spread below you on a clear day. The coach journey through Connemara also passes through Oughterard - the last town before the bog opens up, where Aughnanure Castle (an O’Flaherty tower house, c.1500) sits on Lough Corrib three kilometres east. Beyond that is Clifden, the capital of Connemara, built on bog in 1812 by John D’Arcy. Ask your guide about the bog landscape - the turf-cutting tradition and the ecology are a story most people haven’t heard.
Practical note: the maximum group of 10 means you have a genuinely small-group experience. The Kylemore visit works best if you don’t rush - the garden alone takes forty minutes to do properly.