The Emerald Marathon: What to Do in Ireland for 21 Days Without Growing Moss

The County-by-County Game Plan: What To Do In Ireland For 21 Days Without Getting Lost or Broke

With three full weeks to explore Ireland’s 32,595 square miles (roughly the size of Indiana, but with 40 shades of green and significantly more sheep), you can actually settle into the rhythm of the place rather than just checking landmarks off a list. The following itinerary divides your 21 days into manageable regional chunks, allowing for both iconic experiences and those magical moments that happen when you’re not rushing to the next destination.

Days 1-5: Dublin and Eastern Ireland – First Impressions and Ancient Wonders

Begin in Dublin, where jet lag can be treated with a properly pulled pint. Spend your first two days exploring beyond the tourist magnets. While Temple Bar has all the authenticity of a Lucky Charms commercial, just a few blocks away you’ll find genuine Dublin in pubs like The Long Hall or Kehoe’s, where a pint costs $7-8 instead of the $9-10 tourist tax. Visit the Chester Beatty Library—Dublin’s best-kept secret—housing manuscript treasures that make the Book of Kells look like airport fiction.

On day three, hop the DART train ($4 round-trip) to Howth for cliff walks offering views comparable to a mini-California coastal path but with fewer influencers. The seafood at The Bloody Stream restaurant ($18-25 for main courses) comes fresh from boats you can see from your table. This is what to do in Ireland for 21 days that most rushed tourists miss—actually taking time to digest both the food and the scenery.

Day four should be dedicated to Newgrange and the Boyne Valley. These megalithic structures predate the Egyptian pyramids by 500 years and Stonehenge by 1,000, yet most Americans couldn’t pick them out of a prehistoric lineup. Entry costs $25, but watching the sun illuminate a 5,200-year-old passage tomb makes you feel both insignificant and strangely connected to human history.

For day five, venture into the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough, where 6th-century monks built a monastery that survived Viking raids but not Instagram. The hiking trails range from gentle ambles to quad-burning climbs, resembling the Appalachian foothills but with more sheep and fewer bears. The Upper Lake offers reflection-perfect photography, while the monastic site gives Americans that “older-than-my-country” vertigo that European travelers find so amusing.

Days 6-9: Southern Ireland Circuit – From Foodie Heaven to National Treasure

Days six and seven center around Cork City and Blarney Castle. The English Market in Cork offers a food paradise where artisan cheeses, fresh seafood, and butchers displaying anatomical cuts Americans never knew existed coexist in Victorian splendor. Blarney Castle’s famous stone costs $18 to kiss—a steep price for what is essentially licking a petri dish with an Irish accent. The castle grounds, however, are genuinely magical, especially the poison garden where plants are labeled with helpful notes on their lethal properties.

Dedicate day eight to Cobh and Kinsale. Cobh (pronounced “cove”) was the Titanic’s last port of call, a fact commemorated with exhibits containing significantly more historical accuracy than the movie. The town’s cathedral towers over candy-colored houses cascading down to the harbor—Ireland’s San Francisco, but with less tech and more melancholy. Kinsale, meanwhile, has established itself as Ireland’s foodie capital, where restaurants like Fishy Fishy serve seafood so fresh it practically critiques your eating technique ($15-40 per meal).

Day nine belongs to Killarney National Park, where bike rentals ($20/day) allow you to cover more ground without contributing to traffic jams caused by tour buses. The park’s red deer appear distinctly unimpressed by visitors, perhaps because they’re descended from a herd that’s roamed here continuously since the Ice Age. Americans used to the massive antlers of elk will find these deer charmingly compact, like the difference between American portion sizes and European ones.

Days 10-14: The Wild Atlantic Way and Western Ireland – Edge-of-the-World Views

Days ten and eleven should be spent on the Dingle Peninsula, where a town of 2,000 people supports 52 pubs in what can only be described as Olympic-level dedication to hospitality. Take the Slea Head Drive, where each turn reveals another postcard view and another tour bus attempting a 12-point turn. Dingle’s former celebrity resident, Fungie the dolphin, has gone missing, leading to the kind of widespread mourning usually reserved for heads of state.

The Ring of Kerry occupies day twelve, with the crucial tip that you should drive it counter-clockwise to avoid meeting tour buses on the narrowest sections. The route offers a greatest hits of Irish scenery: mountains that rise dramatically from the sea, beaches where the sand is so white it appears Photoshopped, and sheep that stare at you with the judgment of DMV employees. Professional photographers know to stop at Ladies View for the shot that launched a thousand calendars.

Days thirteen and fourteen belong to Galway City and Connemara. Galway has Portland, Oregon’s quirky vibe but with more fiddles and fewer food trucks. The city’s pedestrianized center fills with buskers ranging from teenage tin whistle prodigies to gray-bearded men singing about 19th-century famines with surprising gusto. When planning what to do in Ireland for 21 days, allow ample time in Connemara, where the landscape shifts from gentle pastoral scenes to a rocky moonscape within miles. The region’s remoteness explained why it was one of the few places where native Irish speakers survived centuries of British rule.

Days 15-18: Northern Adventure – Literary Landscapes and Troubled Histories

Sligo and Donegal occupy days fifteen and sixteen, offering literary connections to W.B. Yeats alongside surprising surfing opportunities. Yes, surfing in 55F water is technically possible, though the experience lands somewhere between exhilarating and hypothermic. Donegal’s remote beaches rival Maine’s coastline but with more dramatic mountains and fewer L.L.Bean-wearing tourists. The region remains one of Ireland’s best-kept secrets, largely because getting there requires navigating roads designed for horse-drawn carts rather than SUVs.

Days seventeen and eighteen cross into Northern Ireland, where political murals in Belfast provide a sobering reminder of the Troubles. The Titanic Museum ($25 entry) offers a world-class exhibition about the ill-fated ship built in the city’s shipyards. Black Cab political tours ($35-40 per person) give balanced perspectives on the conflict that dominated headlines until the 1998 peace agreement. The Giant’s Causeway further north presents 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns that geology explains as volcanic activity but which is far more entertainingly attributed to an Irish giant building a pathway to Scotland to fight his Scottish rival.

Days 19-21: Hidden Central Gems and Return – Medieval Marvels and Last Hurrahs

Day nineteen centers around Kilkenny, where the medieval mile contains more preserved historic buildings than some entire American states. The castle, once home to the Butler family for nearly 600 years, demonstrates the stark difference between European and American definitions of “old.” Nearby craft shops showcase Ireland’s contemporary artisans, whose price points range from “reasonable souvenir” to “second mortgage required.”

Cashel and Cahir castles dominate day twenty. The Rock of Cashel rises from the surrounding plain with the dramatic flair of an Irish storyteller reaching his tale’s climax. Once the seat of the kings of Munster, today it hosts tourists gasping at both its magnificence and the steep climb required to reach it. Nearby farm-to-table restaurants serve dishes in the $15-30 range that make American “Irish pub” food look like the culinary crime it truly is.

Day twenty-one returns you to Dublin for last-minute shopping, where airport pricing for Irish souvenirs makes downtown Dublin shops suddenly seem reasonable. The VAT refund process at the airport resembles an Olympic event combining paperwork hurdles, sprinting between terminals, and the patience of a saint. Arrive at least three hours before your flight to navigate both this bureaucratic treasure hunt and the U.S. Customs preclearance that lets you skip the lines when landing back home.

Practical Matters: Logistics Without the Blarney

When planning what to do in Ireland for 21 days, accommodation planning becomes crucial. Hostels ($25-35/night) offer social opportunities and occasionally medieval plumbing. BandBs ($80-120/night) provide home-cooked breakfasts where the quantity of food served appears calibrated for farm laborers rather than tourists. Mid-range hotels ($120-220/night) deliver reliable comfort, while luxury options ($250+/night) often involve converted castles where you can live out Downton Abbey fantasies while struggling to operate shower systems apparently designed by NASA.

Transportation decisions will shape your experience. Rental cars provide freedom but require nerves of steel; automatic transmissions cost 30% more than manuals, making this possibly the most expensive time to remember you can’t drive stick. Public transport works well between major cities but approaches Irish rural areas with the same enthusiasm Americans show for soccer—technically available but not deeply committed. Irish bus schedules represent more suggestion than science, operating on what locals call “Irish time,” which bears only a casual relationship to Greenwich Mean Time.

Food and drink represent essential cultural experiences rather than mere sustenance. Regional specialties range from Dublin coddle (a stew that looks questionable but tastes divine) to fresh seafood chowder that makes New England’s version seem like it came from a can. Pub etiquette includes never ordering a “car bomb” drink (deeply offensive given the region’s history) and tipping at 10-12%, not the American 20% that makes Irish servers suspect you’re either very drunk or very lost.

Weather realities mean packing for Ireland’s “50 shades of green” requires waterproof everything. Monthly temperature averages tell only part of the story; the real challenge is Ireland’s meteorological mood swings that can deliver sunshine, sideways rain, and rainbow conditions within a single hour. Layers become your best defense against climate chaos, along with the fatalistic Irish attitude summarized as: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”