Shamrocks, Shenanigans, and Sheep: Your Ultimate 14 Day Ireland Itinerary

Your Day-by-Day 14 Day Ireland Itinerary: Where to Go, Stay, and Play

This 14 day Ireland itinerary balances iconic sites with authentic experiences, allowing time to both check off bucket-list attractions and accumulate those unplanned moments that transform a vacation into stories you’ll still be telling at awkward family gatherings ten years later. The route forms a rough clockwise circle around the island, minimizing backtracking and maximizing your exposure to Ireland’s regional personalities, which vary as distinctly as whiskey brands.

Days 1-3: Dublin and Surroundings (Where History Gets Chatty)

Your Irish adventure begins in Dublin, where literary giants and pub culture collide with spectacular results. From Dublin Airport, reach the city center via taxi ($30) or the more budget-friendly Aircoach ($8) – both delivering you into a capital that wears its history like a comfortable cardigan rather than a stuffy museum piece. Accommodation options span from The Merrion ($400/night), where you’ll sleep surrounded by an original art collection that would make small museums jealous, to the hipster-friendly Dean Hotel ($200/night) with its rooftop bar, to Abbey Court Hostel ($30/night) for travelers whose priorities skew more toward experiences than thread counts.

Beyond the obligatory Trinity College visit to see the Book of Kells (worth the $18 admission despite the crowds), seek out the Little Museum of Dublin, where the city’s 20th-century history unfolds through donated artifacts and guides whose storytelling abilities would make your high school history teacher weep with inadequacy. The EPIC Emigration Museum ($18) chronicles the Irish diaspora with interactive exhibits that explain why there’s an O’Something in every American town. For your evening entertainment, the Literary Pub Crawl ($30) demonstrates the inextricable relationship between Irish literature and alcohol consumption – a connection so profound it makes American writers look practically teetotal by comparison.

On day three, escape the capital for seaside Howth, just 30 minutes by train ($7 round trip). The cliff walk delivers vistas that make Maine’s coastline seem like it’s not really trying, while seafood restaurants like The Oarsman serve catches so fresh they were likely contemplating their fish lives mere hours before landing on your plate. The prawns here make Boston’s fish markets look like amateur hour at a community college culinary program.

Days 4-5: Belfast and Northern Ireland (Where History Gets Complicated)

The train from Dublin to Belfast ($25-50) crosses an international border so subtle you might miss it while checking Instagram – though historically, this boundary has been anything but insignificant. The Titanic Belfast museum ($25) commemorates both the engineering marvel and tragic hubris behind history’s most famous maritime disaster, with the Irish simultaneously claiming credit for building the magnificent vessel and distancing themselves from whoever designed those clearly inadequate lifeboats.

For a sobering education on The Troubles, book a Black Cab political tour ($40/person) with drivers who lived through the conflict and deliver nuanced perspectives regardless of their background. Their ability to explain complex sectarian issues to Americans who think “Troubles” sounds like a quaint euphemism for something that couldn’t possibly involve car bombs proves that teaching is indeed a calling. Accommodation-wise, the Europa Hotel ($190/night) holds the dubious honor of surviving 36 bomb attacks during The Troubles – a resilience that deserves your tourism dollars more than whatever chain hotel you might be considering.

A day trip to the Giant’s Causeway presents 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns created either by volcanic activity 60 million years ago or, according to local legend, by a giant building a bridge to Scotland. The science is compelling, but the folklore makes better Instagram captions. Guided tours run $50-90 and spare you the navigational challenges of driving narrow coastal roads where sheep consider themselves entitled to right-of-way regardless of what your rental car agreement suggests.

Days 6-7: Galway and Connemara (Where Ireland Gets Poetic)

The bus journey from Belfast to Galway ($35-50) takes five hours but offers scenery that makes the time pass faster than expected – unlike certain childhood road trips to visit distant relatives. Galway itself presents a compact, walkable city where street performers populate every corner and the Latin Quarter bars pulse with traditional music. Your 14 day Ireland itinerary demands at least one evening here watching musicians who’ve been playing together so long they communicate through eyebrow movements alone.

Dedicate a full day to Connemara National Park, where landscapes make Vermont look like it’s not even trying. The barren beauty of this region has inspired poets, filmmakers, and countless tourists to reconsider their phone storage capacity as they frantically delete apps to make room for more photos. Accommodation ranges from the centrally located Park House Hotel ($180/night) to the budget-friendly Snoozles Hostel ($28/night), both positioned for easy exploration of a city where getting lost means finding another charming pub you hadn’t planned to visit.

Weather permitting (a significant caveat in western Ireland), a ferry trip to the Aran Islands ($30-40 round trip) rewards visitors with landscapes that appear frozen in time and locals who speak Irish as their first language. Rent bicycles ($15/day) to explore Inishmore’s prehistoric fort of Dún Aonghasa, perched on cliffs with no safety railings whatsoever – the Irish approach to liability that simultaneously terrifies American lawyers and thrills those seeking authentic experiences.

Days 8-9: The Burren, Cliffs of Moher, and County Clare (Where Nature Shows Off)

If your 14 day Ireland itinerary includes driving, prepare for roads that locals call two-lane highways but Americans would classify as ambitious bike paths. The reward for navigating these ribbon-like routes is access to The Burren, a lunar landscape where limestone pavements host Arctic and Mediterranean plants growing side by side in botanical defiance of conventional growing zones. It’s the horticultural equivalent of finding both polar bears and palm trees thriving in the same habitat.

The Cliffs of Moher deliver the vertical drama promised in travel brochures, rising 700 feet from the Atlantic. Arrive before 10am or after 4pm to avoid tour buses and save $2 on the $10 parking fee – a minor victory that will feel disproportionately satisfying. For traditional music, the small town of Doolin offers nightly sessions in pubs like McDermott’s and McGann’s, where unspoken etiquette dictates that when musicians are playing, conversation ceases – a rule Americans typically learn after receiving glares that could curdle milk.

Doolin’s Aille River Hostel ($30/night) offers sea views that would command $300+ per night in California coastal towns, while mid-range BandBs ($80-120/night) provide breakfast conversations with proprietors who consider it their personal responsibility to reorganize your itinerary based on weather forecasts they trust more than meteorologists.

Days 10-11: Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula (Where Postcards Come to Life)

The Ring of Kerry presents a conundrum: drive it yourself and focus more on not scraping stone walls than admiring scenery, or join a tour bus ($50) and surrender independence for stress reduction. This segment of your 14 day Ireland itinerary requires strategic decisions based on your tolerance for narrow roads and oncoming tour buses that expect you, not them, to yield on hairpin turns. The less-crowded alternative, the Dingle Peninsula, delivers equally stunning coastal views with incrementally less traffic-induced anxiety.

Slea Head Drive offers photo opportunities that make Instagram influencers weep with inadequacy – ancient beehive huts, dramatic coastlines, and sheep that pose obligingly as though they understand their role in your vacation documentation. Dining in Dingle should prioritize seafood chowder containing more cream than the entire state of Wisconsin produces annually, ideally consumed while local musicians play in the corner of whichever establishment you’ve chosen.

Accommodation options range from the Dingle Skellig Hotel ($220/night) with its spa overlooking the bay, to family-run BandBs ($70-100/night) where breakfast features eggs from chickens you can see from your window and conversation with proprietors who consider six degrees of separation an unnecessarily high number when establishing connections to every American visitor.

Days 12-13: Cork and Kinsale (Where Food Gets Serious)

Cork city proudly maintains its reputation as Ireland’s culinary capital, with the English Market offering food tastings that rival Seattle’s Pike Place at a fraction of the price. The eternal question of whether Blarney Castle is worth visiting ($18 admission) depends on your interest in kissing a stone that thousands of others have pressed their lips against – an activity that predates yet somehow perfectly predicts our collective disregard for germ theory during certain recent global events.

The harbor town of Kinsale presents a more compelling case for your time, with its rainbow-colored buildings housing seafood restaurants where fish likely swimming during your morning coffee now features on your dinner plate. Charles Fort ($5 admission) provides military history with harbor views, while the Jameson Distillery tour in nearby Midleton ($25) offers whiskey education that makes Kentucky bourbon trails seem rushed by comparison. The Irish take their time explaining whiskey production with the same precision and patience they apply to storytelling – which is to say, thoroughness trumps brevity every time.

Day 14: Return to Dublin (Where Goodbyes Get Reluctant)

Your final day requires strategic planning to maximize remaining hours while accommodating departure logistics. Dublin offers luggage storage options ($5-10/bag) at various city center locations, freeing you to explore unburdened by suitcases filled with rain-damp clothing and questionable souvenir choices. Last-minute shopping should bypass shamrock t-shirts for authentic items like handknit Aran sweaters that cost more than you planned to spend but will last longer than your memories.

For airport transportation, apply the Irish concept of time by adding 30 minutes to whatever Google Maps suggests – a buffer that accounts for unexpected sheep crossings, tractors on main roads, and the national tendency to consider timetables as loose frameworks rather than commitments. As for transportation throughout your journey, car rentals run approximately $400-600 for two weeks (plus courage-building fees), while public transportation passes cost $160-240 and include the character-building experience of occasionally finding yourself in places you didn’t intend to visit.