Expat Travel Mom

This was part of two massive road trips across Ireland and Northern Ireland over two summers, one covering three weeks, and the other six weeks, and well over a thousand miles. If you're planning to follow similar routes, this post covers the south and west specifically, not necessarily in the correct driving order as it's two trips combined. The rest of the trips are broken out separately: Northern Ireland, The Wild Northwest, and Dublin & the East.

Kilbrittain Glamping

One of our best Airbnb stays of the entire trip. Our host had built the whole glamping setup on her own property purely because she loved camping herself, and we were only her ninth guests ever. She met us with genuine, almost disbelieving excitement, walked the kids through a play tent stocked full of games, helped us get settled into the main tent, told us all about the homemade breakfast waiting for us in the morning, and lit up watching the kids run straight for her dogs. This is exactly why we keep choosing Airbnb over a chain hotel whenever we can, moments like this. Kilbrittain is quaint, found a lovely restaurant nearby, called The Pink Elephant, with plenty of space for the kids to run around. This was a nice break from our massive road trip.

Caheragh and the Casey Family

Sherkin Island

A short ferry ride out from Baltimore took us to Sherkin Island, and it was every bit as beautiful as promised, quiet walking trails, gorgeous beaches, and a genuinely simple pace of life. We made a point of stopping at our friend's pub while we were there, The Jolly Roger, well worth the visit if you find yourself out this way. Highly recommend a day walking around the island and then enjoying a pint and some food at the pub.

The Ring of Beara

Several people warned us off the Ring of Kerry and pointed us toward the Ring of Beara instead, and it was some of the best travel advice we got the whole trip. We had the road entirely to ourselves, no line of tour buses in sight, just breathtaking coastal views the whole way around. After our drive, we stopped at Muckross House on the way to our next Airbnb, allowing ourselves a good stretch and walk around. We were genuinely thankful we hadn't booked anything in Killarney's town center itself, it turned out to be far more commercialized than we expected.

Killarney and the Gap of Dunloe

You have to do the Gap of Dunloe. It's simply breathtaking. We'd recommend walking to the fifth lake vs. the horse and buggy ride. (There can be haggling over price, some attendants seemed very caring to their horses while others seemed to think it's just a business, and there have been concerns over road safety). And, it's exercise! Our Airbnb that night looked straight out over the Gap in the morning sun, with the owner's own horses grazing nearby.

Blarney Castle

Yes, it's a tourist trap. Yes, we did it anyway. Blarney Castle dates back to 1446, built by Cormac "Laidir" MacCarthy, King of Munster, and the stone itself has more competing origin legends than almost anything else in Ireland, gifted by Robert the Bruce after Bannockburn, blessed by the Queen of the Faeries, or tied to a local goddess named Clíodhna who supposedly told the castle's builder to kiss the first stone he found on his way to court. Geologists have since confirmed it's simply local Irish limestone, no matter what the legends claim. Kissing it requires leaning backward over the castle battlements while someone holds your legs, which is exactly as nerve-wracking as it sounds, and yes, we all did it anyway for the promised "gift of the gab." Harry Potter fans in the family were just as excited to spot a real mandrake growing in the gardens below.

King John's Castle, Limerick

We were actually staying in Limerick for a week (actually, just outside in this Airbnb in Killaloe), so that our kids go attend summer camps (something they didn't really get in Singapore). One they were at camp one day, we stopped at King John's Castle, standing right on King's Island along the River Shannon. The site was actually a Viking stronghold first, established around 922 AD, and King John of England ordered the stone castle built directly on top of those older earthworks starting around 1200, using the city to secure English power in Ireland and even minting his own royal coins right inside its walls. The castle has survived sieges across eight full centuries, including a brutal one in 1642 where Confederate forces tunneled under the walls until the garrison finally surrendered, and again during the Williamite Wars of the 1690s. Walking the battlements and drum towers today, with the whole city and the Clare hills spread out below, it's easy to see why this exact spot on the river was worth fighting over for a thousand years.

Kilkenny and Adare

A quick, worthwhile stop on our way through, Kilkenny sits right in the middle of what's marketed as Ireland's Ancient East, and it more than lived up to that billing in the short time we had there. Adare might be the single prettiest small town we passed through on the whole trip. Founded in the 13th century, its main street is lined with thatched cottages built in the 1820s by the Earl of Dunraven, genuinely one of the most photographed streets in all of Ireland, and it's easy to see why the moment you're standing on it.

Adare Friary and St. Nicholas's Church

Just outside the village, we wandered through Adare Friary, known locally as the "Black Abbey," an Augustinian foundation established in 1316 by John Fitzgerald, the first Earl of Kildare. The nickname has nothing sinister behind it, it simply comes from the black cassocks the Augustinian friars wore. Suppressed during the Reformation in the 1500s, it sat in ruin for centuries before the Dunraven family restored it in 1807, and it's since become St. Nicholas's Church, still an active place of worship today. The stained glass inside was genuinely stunning, tall, glowing windows filling the old stone nave with color, a quiet, beautiful counterpoint to the thatched-cottage prettiness we'd just been wandering through in the village itself.

Kilkee and Loop Head

Out on the Loop Head Peninsula in County Clare, away from the crowds that pack the more famous Cliffs of Moher, we found some of the quietest, most rugged coastline of the entire trip. The drive out to Loop Head Lighthouse starts right in Kilkee and follows the peninsula's edge the whole way. There's been a light warning ships off this point since around 1670, and the current tower, built in 1854, still flashes its distinctive pattern, 20 seconds of light followed by 4 of dark, though it wasn't fully electrified until 1971. Worth every mile of the detour. 

Of course we also saw the Cliffs of Moher.

Dingle

The drive out to Dingle was gorgeous, the town itself, if I'm honest, was a bit of a letdown after everywhere else we'd just been. We also tried the Dingle Oceanworld aquarium based on glowing reviews and left disappointed, at €46 for a family ticket, it really wasn't worth it for our older kids, probably better suited to a much younger crowd.

The south and west gave us glamping hosts who became friends, coastlines that put the famous ones to shame, a genuinely nerve-wracking castle kiss, and a farm family we still think about. Ireland earned every bit of its reputation on this leg of the trip.

These were our two big road trips.