Ireland is a country of day trips.
Which Cliffs of Moher coach leaves early enough to matter. Whether Blarney is worth the queue. What a Jameson tasting actually costs. Every Irish tour worth the seat, read before you book.
The six days most Irish trips are built around.
The cliff walk, the whiskey, the castles, the Kerry loop, the black stuff and the monastery in the valley. Everything else on an Irish itinerary tends to arrange itself around these.
Cliffs of Moher: three different days, one edge.
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The cliffs are three and a half hours from Dublin and ninety minutes from Galway, and that single fact decides what your day looks like. These three carry the most travellers between them; the full list splits the rest by where you start and how much of the day you want back.
Dublin door to cliff edge and back
The whole width of the country in one sitting: Limerick or the Burren on the way out, an hour or so on the cliff path, Galway city on the way home.
The Burren, the cliffs, back for dinner
Galway is the closer base, so the limestone pavement of the Burren gets real time instead of a photo stop, and Dunguaire or Aillwee Cave fits in the gap.
Inisheer first, then the cliffs from the water
A morning on the smallest Aran island — stone walls, a wrecked freighter, bicycles — then the boat runs under the cliffs on the way back, which is the angle the coaches never get.
By base — Dublin, Galway, Killarney, Cork
By kind of day — cliffs, castles, distilleries, coast
An Irish day out, sorted by the fare.
Every per-person fare on the site, banded. Charters quoted per group are left out of these numbers so the bands compare like with like.
Cathedral admissions, distillery tastings, pub crawls and the city walks — most of Dublin fits in here.
The workhorse day trip: Glendalough and Wicklow, the Ring of Kerry from Killarney, Connemara out of Galway.
The long hauls and the combinations — Cliffs of Moher from Dublin, the Causeway coast, Blarney with two more castles.
Private drivers, multi-day runs and the small-boat trips that only go when the Atlantic allows it.
The tours more people take than anything else in Ireland.
Every review →Ranked by the number of travellers who have actually been, not by what anyone wants to sell you.
1
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and Galway
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, and Galway in one long day with 4G Wi-Fi, fast-track entry, and guided stops.
From · $90
Read our review →2
Cliffs of Moher, Burren & Galway City Day Tour
from $89
3
Guinness Storehouse Entry Ticket
from $34
4
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, Burren, Wild Atlantic Way, Galway Tour
from $94
5
Dublin to Belfast Black Cab, Dunluce Castle and Giant’s Causeway
from $96
6
Kilkenny, Wicklow Mountains & Glendalough Day Tour from Dublin
from $48
7
Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough & Kilkenny Tour
from $45
8
Irish Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum Experience Dublin
from $26
Galway is the door to the whole Atlantic coast.
From one small city you can reach Connemara, the Burren, the cliffs and the Aran Islands, and be back for the music. It is the most efficient base in the country and the least like the rest of it.
All Galway days out →
Killarney: lakes in the morning, the Ring after lunch.
The national park starts at the edge of town, so the boat cruises and the jaunting cars leave from a street you can walk to. The Ring of Kerry and the Gap of Dunloe are the full-day versions of the same landscape.
Cork sends you to Blarney, Kinsale and the Midleton stills.
The second city keeps its own harbour, its own accent and a gaol museum on the hill. Around it: the stone everybody kisses, a fishing town that eats better than it should, and the biggest distillery in the country.
All Cork days out →
Three things you can only do in Ireland.
Castles and coastlines are everywhere in Europe. A pony trap through Killarney, a stone you have to lie down backwards to kiss and a working sheepdog on a Wicklow hillside are not.
Kissing the Blarney Stone
The stone is set into the parapet of a fifteenth-century keep outside Cork, and reaching it means lying on your back over a gap in the floor while somebody holds your coat. There is a handrail and a member of staff, and it is still undignified. The gardens below — a poison garden, a yew walk, a rock close full of ferns — are the part people are surprised by.
- 1Dublin to Rock of Cashel, Cork City & Blarney Castle Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,536 reviews
- 2Blarney, Rock of Cashel & Cahir Castles Day Tour From Dublin★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,944 reviews
- 3Blarney, Rock of Cashel and Cahir Castles Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 772 reviews
The Killarney Jaunting Car
A jaunting car is a two-wheeled horse trap and the driver is called a jarvey. They have worked the Killarney lake road since the nineteenth century and they still do it as a licensed trade, running out to Ross Castle, through the Gap of Dunloe and around Muckross. It is slower than a coach on purpose; the commentary is the point.
- 11-Hour Jaunting Car Horse and Carriage Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 361 reviews
- 2Jaunting Car Tour in Killarney National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 153 reviews
- 3Jaunting Car & Lake Cruise Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 129 reviews
A Working Sheepdog Demonstration
Border collies on an Irish hill farm work to whistles and single words, gathering a flock across ground a quad bike could not take. The demonstrations are run by the families who farm the land, usually as a stop on a Wicklow or Connemara day, and the dogs are not performing — that is the actual morning job.
- 1Kilkenny, Wicklow & Glendalough Tour & Sheepdog Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,599 reviews
- 2Glendalough, Wicklow, Kilkenny and Sheepdog demonstration★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,215 reviews
- 3Caherconnell Fort & Sheepdog Demonstrations★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 645 reviews
It is going to rain. Book the days that do not mind.
Ireland gets rain in every month of the year and the west coast gets it on roughly half the days. Nothing on this site is cancelled by drizzle, but a cliff walk in horizontal rain is a wasted fare. Keep one of these in reserve and swap it in when the forecast turns.
Dublin does its best work in the evening.
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Four Irish bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of Ireland can be arranged from the guesthouse the night before. These cannot: they run on timed tickets, licensed boats and an Atlantic that gets a vote.
- 1Dublin Book of Kells, Castle and Molly Malone Statue Guided TourTrinity College sells the Book of Kells on timed entry. The morning slots go first, and the fast-track combinations go before those.
- 2Guinness Storehouse Entry TicketTimed entry, and the summer afternoon slots fill. Turning up at the gate on a wet August Tuesday is how people end up not going.
- 3Ring of Kerry and Skellig Ring Private TourLandings on Skellig Michael run from mid-May to September on a small number of licensed boats, and only when the swell allows. The seats are gone months ahead; the weather still cancels them.
- 4Boyne Valley with Newgrange and Bru Na Boinne EntryThe Newgrange chamber is entered on a timed ticket from the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre and there is no drive-up access to the mound itself.
The loop most first trips end up driving: Dublin round to Galway.
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