DUBLIN

Hotel:

• The Westbury. Great hotel, full breakfast included, in the center of town so it’s completely walkable

Car:

• Rent one. Driving sucks and it’s scary, not only because you’re on the opposite side of the car and road, but the roads are so narrow you constantly feel like you’re going to run into another car or wall. That said, it’s the only way to really see the island.

Activities

• Trinity College and The Book of Kells - The library is beautiful. Need to buy tickets, we bought them online before we walked over.

• Guinness - self guided tour but we bought tickets ahead of time to the Gravity Bar on the top floor. After the tour you get a pint of Guinness and the view of the city is pretty great.

• Horse and carriage ride - Not really a tour but a fun ‘uber’ ride from Guinness to Jameson. They’re lined up outside of Guinness just like taxis and one of the destinations is Jameson.

• Jameson - Bought tickets ahead of time. This is a fun history/science lesson and it includes a tasting. You end where you begin which is where their bar is so you can get a cocktail or straight Jameson. The kids enjoyed sweet mocktails and they were entertained during the whole tour.

Restaurants

• 1837 Bar & Brasserie (inside Guinness)

• The Temple Bar

CORK

Hotel:

• Hayfield Manor Hotel - full and included breakfast again at a pretty hotel

Activities

• Rock of Cashel is a landmark halfway from Dublin to Cork so this was our break in the drive.

• Blarney Castle and Gardens - kiss the stone! Just one of those things we have to do. Only I did it, Scotland attempted but got scared as she laid down and leaned back so she bailed. Great place to let kids explore and play on the iconic moss covered trees limbs and search for fairy doors. Grabbed a drink and sat in the gardens.

KILLARNEY - here on St. Patrick’s Day

Hotel: Airbnb

• We booked an airbnb so we could plan to do laundry. At the time this was our only option and it was walkable to the city center.

Activities

• Killarney National Park - we actually didn’t have time to do anything here because of time but we were very close to it.

• Ring of Kerry - a pretty drive you want to start first thing in the morning because it will take you all day and you don’t want to be driving on it at night. We almost divorced around this ring; narrow roads, cliffs and kids. The drive can be terrifying at some spots for the passenger (me) but I also didn’t want to be responsible for driving so I tried to keep my mouth shut as much as I could…

• St. Patrick’s Day parade - obviously we were here on THE DAY so it was a perfect a little town to be in compared to Dublin. We watched the local parade, saw zero green beer, and ate in a classic Irish bar with Irish music and dancing. Bucket list, check! At night it turns into a classic busy, drunken college town so we had dinner quickly and walked home.

Restaurants

• An Bodhran - a pub we grabbed drinks and added a dollar to the wall

GALWAY - our favorite city

Hotel

• Park House Hotel

Activities

• Cliffs of Mohr - a destination you need to do on your road trip or plan it as an entire day trip. There’s a lot of driving around Ireland so we planned to hit this on our way to Galway. Cold, windy, and beautiful.

• Visit a sheep farm - we drove to a local family farm out in the country where they handler showed us how the border collie herds the sheep by commands across the field. My favorite activity and the reason for the next :)

• Tattoos - we started a thing where we get tattoos on big destination trips, this was our first one. We got sheep because I just love animals and you see sheep everywhere like we see cows in the US. The best souvenir you can find.

DUBLIN - drove back for one night to fly out the next day.

Hotel

• Fitzwilliam Hotel Dublin

Activities

• Ate at The Church and watched Irish dancers

IRELAND