The Cliffs of Moher are a day trip. The rest of Ireland is why you stay.
Which Cliffs of Moher coach actually stops in the Burren. What the Guinness Storehouse costs at the door. Whether Glendalough beats the run north to the Causeway on your one spare day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Ireland.
Four bookings a first week in Ireland is built around.
The cliff day, the storehouse, the mountains an hour south of Dublin and the long run north. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The cliff dayCliffs of Moher, Burren and Galway Day Tour from DublinDoolin, the Burren pavement and Galway city on the way home. Go early: the afternoon coaches all arrive together.
02The long morningGuinness Storehouse ExperienceSeven floors above St James’s Gate, ending at the glass bar with the whole city laid out under you.
03An hour southKilkenny, Wicklow Mountains & Glendalough Day Tour from DublinLough Tay, the round tower at Glendalough and Kilkenny’s medieval mile, all inside one day.
04The run northDublin to Belfast Titanic, Dunluce Castle & Giant’s Causeway TourTitanic Belfast, Dunluce on its sea stack, and the basalt columns stepping into the North Channel.
Nearly every good Irish day out ends up pointed at the ocean.
Three ways to reach the west coast, what it costs to board each one, and which city it leaves from.
Dublin first, then the coast roads west and south.
A capital you can cross on foot in a morning, a harbour city built on butter and stout, lakes under the Kerry mountains, the town the Connemara road leaves from, a peninsula with the ocean on three sides, and a medieval mile. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Dublin: the college, the gate, and the long walk between them.
Everything in Dublin →
Trinity before the coaches, the two names on every list, and a walk that ties the Georgian squares to the bullet holes in the GPO columns. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Trinity, the Long Room and the gospel book
Four gospels painted on vellum around the year 800, one open spread at a time, then two hundred thousand older books under the barrel ceiling upstairs. The first slot of the day is the only quiet one.
Seven floors, and the pint at the top
The old fermentation plant rebuilt as a museum around a glass atrium shaped like a pint. The ticket ends at the Gravity Bar, which is worth the climb on a clear day and worth it anyway on a wet one.
Bow Street, and the comparative tasting
Jameson stopped distilling on Bow Street in 1971 and the buildings became the tour. The tasting flight puts an Irish pot still beside a Scotch and a bourbon and makes you say which you prefer.
Ireland’s most popular days out.
Every Irish tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and Galway
Travel from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway with Wild Rover Tours on a 13-hour coach trip. You get two hours at the cliffs, a Burren route with Irish stories and music, and two hours in Galway, plus Wi-Fi and included admission.
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
Three things that only happen in Ireland.
Castles and coastline turn up all over Europe. A ninth-century gospel book turned one page a day, a pony and trap on a lake road, and forty thousand basalt columns walking into the sea do not.
The Book of Kells
Four gospels, copied and painted by monks around the year 800 on calf vellum, bound in Latin and kept in a case at Trinity College. The librarians turn one page a day, so no two visits show the same spread. The Long Room above it holds two hundred thousand of the library’s oldest books under a barrel ceiling, and entry runs on timed slots.
- 1Dublin Book of Kells, Castle and Molly Malone Statue Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,825 reviews
- 2Fast-Track Book of Kells Ticket & Dublin Castle Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,661 reviews
- 3St Patrick’s Cathedral, Book of Kells and Dublin Castle Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 882 reviews
Killarney National Park
Ten thousand hectares of oak wood, lake and mountain that begin at the end of the town’s main street. You cross it by jaunting car, a pony and two-wheeled trap with a driver who has run the same roads since he was a teenager, or by boat from Ross Castle through the three lakes towards the Gap of Dunloe. Both are slower than the coach, which is the point.
- 1Lakes of Killarney: Boat Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 778 reviews
- 2Ring of Kerry Day Tour from Cork: Including Killarney National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 663 reviews
- 3Killarney National Park Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 503 reviews
The Giant’s Causeway
Forty thousand columns, most of them hexagonal, cooled out of a lava flow sixty million years ago and stepping down into the North Channel. It sits up in County Antrim, so from Dublin it is a long day, usually tied to Dunluce Castle on its sea stack and the beech tunnel at the Dark Hedges.
- 1Dublin to Belfast Black Cab, Dunluce Castle and Giant’s Causeway★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,954 reviews
- 2Dublin to Dunluce Castle, Giant’s Causeway, Dark Hedges & Belfast★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,781 reviews
- 3Dublin to Belfast Titanic, Dunluce Castle & Giant’s Causeway Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,729 reviews
Kerry is a lake, a mountain gap, and a road that circles both.
Killarney puts jaunting cars in its national park and boats on its lakes, then sends everyone out on the Ring for the day. Stay in the town and let somebody else take the corners on the Coomakista pass.
Every Kerry day out →
What a day out in Ireland actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best Irish days come in under the price of dinner.
City walks, distillery and storehouse entry, the Liffey cruise and the short hops out of Dublin.
The full-day standards: the Cliffs of Moher run, Connemara, the Ring of Kerry and the Causeway.
Private drivers, small-group runs over several days and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Cork keeps the castle, the harbour and the best market in the country.
Blarney and its stone are twenty minutes out of the city, Cobh and the last Titanic pier twenty the other way, and in between there is a covered market that has been trading since 1788. The city itself is islands and bridges, which is why nobody drives it.
- 1Ring of Kerry Guided Day Tripfrom $67
- 2Cliffs of Moher and More: Full-Day Tour from Corkfrom $78
- 3Cork Midleton DistilleryJameson Experience & Whiskey Tastingfrom $37
Four Irish bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on timed slots, ferry timetables and a swell that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Dublin Book of Kells, Castle and Molly Malone Statue Guided TourTrinity releases entry in timed slots and caps each one. The early slots go first, and the queue at the gate is not the same thing as a ticket.
- 02Guinness Storehouse Entry TicketEntry is timed and the top-floor bar fills. Turning up at three on a Saturday means the last slot of the day, or nothing.
- 03Galway to Inisheer Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher and Boat TripThe Aran ferries run to a timetable and stop when the swell says so. There is no later boat once the afternoon sailing goes.
- 04Jameson Whiskey Distillery Tour with TastingsThe comparative tastings seat a handful of people at a bench at a time, and they are the first thing gone on a wet weekend.
It will rain. Book the day that does not care.
Rain here rarely cancels anything, but it does decide where you want to be at two in the afternoon. The answer is usually indoors and warm: a distillery floor, a museum, a session in a back bar, a bus with a roof on it.
Whiskey at Bow Street, stout at St James’s Gate, and the bar afterwards.
A good deal of Ireland happens standing at a counter. Book the distillery tasting for the afternoon, the storehouse before the queue builds, and the crawl for after dark.
By place — city, coast and county
By kind of day — cliff, castle, counter or coach
Dublin, Glendalough, Cork, Killarney, Dingle, Galway: the loop almost everybody drives first.
GlendaloughThe newest Irish tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Aran Knitting, History and Heritage in the Burren
Read our review →
City Sightseeing Galway Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
Read our review →
Cliffs of Moher, Aran Island & Burren tour from Galway. Guided.
Read our review →
Guided Tour of Aillwee Cave and Visit to the Birds of Prey Centre
Read our review →
Abalone farm tour and tasting with coastal seaweed walk. Guided. 2 hours
Read our review →
Aran Island, Cliffs of Moher & Cruise tour from Galway. Guided.
Read our review →
Private Cliffs of Moher Tour Small Group from Ennis, Ireland
Read our review →
Dublin To Kilkenny Castle Waterford Crystal Private Car – Day Tour
Read our review →