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7-Day Small Group Tour of Dublin, Cork and Galway
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From €4671 per person
Seven days is enough time to see the real shape of Ireland, and this tour covers all the ground you’d want to cover. You start in Dublin - Dublin Castle, the Guinness Storehouse, the streets that tell most of the country’s story. Then it’s south to Cork for a proper Ring of Kerry run, and a stop in Cobh, the medieval port town that saw so much of Irish history pass through it. The final stretch brings you to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, a city that earns its reputation. There’s a wine tasting along the way too, which is a nice change of pace.
The group stays small - maximum 14 people - so you’re not queuing to hear the guide or waiting ages to get moving. Airport welcome, downtown hotels, all intercity transport and entrance fees covered as per the itinerary. It’s a well-organised week with very little to sort yourself.
In Galway - go left off Shop Street. The medieval laneways run narrower and quieter the further you turn from the main drag. Tigh Coili on Mainguard Street does a nightly trad session from around 9:30pm - it’s an Irish-language pub, the standard is high, and the room fills fast. Get there by nine. For food the morning after, the Gourmet Tart Company does hand pies and coffee with queues that move quickly. The person behind you will almost certainly start a conversation. The Aran Islands are a forty-minute ferry from Rossaveal, 40km west of Galway, if the tour gives you any free half-day time - three islands, stone forts, cliff walks, and a boat that cancels if the Atlantic decides otherwise. Kilronan is the main village on Inis Mór, where Irish is the working language of the shops and pubs, and Tigh Ned runs sessions most nights. Spend the evening at Galway and follow the sound of music rather than the signs.
Timing the Ring of Kerry. This tour includes a Ring of Kerry leg, and the road is best covered anti-clockwise to avoid the coach convoys going the other way. The loop runs 179km and comes back to Killarney for the night. Killarney is a railway town with Ireland’s first national park out the back door - Knockreer demesne is ten minutes’ walk from the station and empty before most tourists are up. Kenmare sits where the Ring of Kerry meets the Ring of Beara, a planned town in three streets with more awarded restaurants per square metre than anywhere else in the south-west. The Wednesday farmers market there is worth pausing for if the itinerary allows. Sneem is the village where most coaches stop for forty minutes - the actual village has a bronze of world-champion wrestler Steve Crusher Casey on South Square, and the salmon waterfalls behind the church are five minutes on foot and not on any coach map.
On the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are best in the morning light when the haze is lowest. If your tour arrives mid-afternoon, walk south of the main visitor centre path - the cliff edge quiets down the further you go from the car park. Doolin is the village six kilometres north of the cliffs with four pubs, a Michelin-starred restaurant (Homestead Cottage), and trad sessions at Gus O’Connor’s most nights of the year. Liscannor is the small pier village at the southern end of the cliff walk - Vaughan’s Anchor Inn has been run by the same family since 1979 and the seafood comes off local boats. The Burren landscape on the way there or back is worth paying attention to from the window - Ballyvaughan is the village at the bottom of the limestone, with Monk’s Pub on the harbour and the Burren road climbing behind it. Lisdoonvarna sits ten minutes inland from Doolin - the Matchmaking Festival runs every September since 1857, and the R480 south from there to Doolin is one of the best scenic roads in the west.
In Cork - make time for the English Market. Between the scheduled stops, the English Market on Princes Street is the working heart of the city - fish on ice, local cheeses, fresh bread, all with Cork traders who’ve been doing it for generations. Even a twenty-minute walk through is worth it. Cobh is a 25-minute train ride from Cork Kent - the deepwater harbour town on Great Island where 2.5 million emigrants boarded ships between 1848 and 1950, and where the Titanic made her last call in April 1912. The Annie Moore statue on the prom looks out at the same harbour she left from. The train is the way to arrive; the promenade walk and St. Colman’s Cathedral on the hill are the reasons to stay a few hours.