4 Days in Ireland

DublinGalwayIrelandItinerary
Written By Aline Parnagian

Aer Lingus has been offering incredible flight deals from America to Dublin in order to boost tourism in Ireland. This past May, I went on a quick 4 day trip with my mom. (In case you are wondering if May is a good time to visit Ireland, I definitely think so! We had great weather and very comfortable temperatures). If you are looking for a great little glimpse into Ireland, check out this 4 day itinerary.

If this itinerary helps you, I’d love if you could book your trips through the links I provided - I receive a small commission and it helps me afford to push content out to you!)

On every itinerary I write, I will have a TL;DR where you can get the quick and dirty and then a full blog post below.

TL;DR

Day 1 (Arrival, Cliffs of Moher & Galway)

Day 2 (Connemara Area)

Day 3 (Galway, Howth & Dublin)


Day 4 (Dublin)

The Dirty

Day 1 (Arrival, Cliffs of Moher & Galway)

Our flight arrived around 5am in the morning, so we had a full day to explore. When researching this trip I found that renting a car was the best option for us to have full flexibility. The big tour buses are not my thing and public transportation wasn’t working in our favor for this short trip. So I decided to be brave and drive on the other side of the road. Truly, if you are afraid to try driving on the other side of the road, this probably the best itinerary for you. It was very doable and quite fun. 100% worth it.

So we picked up our car from Sixt Car Rentals and the driving on the other side of the road adventure began. We headed straight to a little town called Doolin to meet up with our tour group to hike the cliffs of Moher. I really like being active on my trips and this seems like the perfect adventure - it did not disappoint! The trek was about 5 miles starting from the little fishing village, going all along the cliff sides to the cliffs of Moher. There were breathtaking views everywhere we looked.

After the hike, we went explored Doolin and had lunch at the cutest restaurant called the Ivy Cottage. I highly recommend their seafood chowder. I am still drooling over it.

After lunch, we headed to Galway to check into our hotel and then meet up with our food tour. Unfortunately, the food tour got canceled but people were so incredibly kind and offered us some food recommendations. If I were to go back again, I would absolutely take this tour as I’ve heard wonderful things. Assuming you decide to try the tour, after you eat , I would head out to Tigh Choili to have some drinks and listen live music. This is the kind of authentic Ireland experience I was hoping to get to experience. I loved it.

Day 2 (Connemara Area)

The next morning we woke up and drove through Connemara National Park to get to DK Oyster Farm where we took a tour of the farm. This was a highlight of the trip. Our guide showed us around the property and shared so many interesting facts about oysters. If you are an oyster fan, you must go to this. I’m telling you that I’m still spitting out so many interesting oyster facts. It was incredible. We then got to taste probably four dozen oysters and holy moly - these were amazing!

After the tour of the oyster farm. We got a recommendation from our guide to go to a food truck, called the Misunderstood Heron. This was probably the best meal I had an all of Ireland. I absolutely would not miss this place.

Once we finished stuffing our faces, we headed to the Killary Sheep Farm to play with some baby sheep and watch a sheepdog demonstration. The baby sheep are adorable. We got to play with them for probably 30 minutes and then we got to watch the sheepdog do an incredible demo. I’ve personally never seen a sheepdog demonstration, and it was incredible how this puppy could hear his owners voice from so far away.

The tour was only an hour long and gave us enough time to stop the Kylemore Abbey before closing. We quickly walked through the gardens which were absolutely beautiful and checked out the Abbey itself. This is a nice stop along the way back to Galway. For dinner and drinks, we stopped at The Universal, which was very modern and had some elevated cocktails and dishes. After we finished eating we decided for some more live music and headed over to Tigh Neachtains

Day 3 (Galway, Howth & Dublin)

This is the last day in Galway and we woke up early and took a walking tour of the city. I really like this walking tour. It was private and I felt like our tour guide told some really incredible stories.

We needed to get back to Dublin, and I had heard such great things about Howth so we decided to make a little detour before dropping off the car. We ate lunch at Octopussy, which was kind of a tapas restaurant style and holy moly was this incredible. I highly recommend going out of your way to eat at this restaurant.

I really didn’t wanna have to drive the car in Dublin city center so we decided to drop the car off at the rental car place and take an Uber into the city. Uber worked really well here and I felt very comfortable and safe. We then went out for our pub crawl tour. The pub crawl was very touristy and had about 100 people on it so I would not say that this is this incredible experience but it was fun and we had a good time out.


Day 4 (Dublin)

The next morning we woke up early for a walking tour of Dublin. I felt like Dublin was a very touristy city, and I probably would not go back here again, but while I was here, I had to absolutely see it. I really wanted to go check out the Trinity Library but apparently you have to book tickets in advance and they were sold out two weeks in advance so I’d highly recommend ordering your tickets ahead of time if you want to be able to check it out.

We then took public transportation to a little town called Dalkey. From here we were going to be taking a kayaking adventure out to kayak with seals. However, the weather was really bad so we didn’t end up actually getting to take this tour. Instead we took a coastal walked along Vico Road. This was absolutely beautiful and while we were disappointed we didn’t get to go kayaking with seals, we did get to see a beautiful beach called White Rock Beach, which is one of the most beautiful beaches in Dublin.

Last up dinner at Wilde and here’s where things get truly wild. As we sat down at the restaurant, I realized I wasn’t feeling well and it was very obvious I got food poisoning. (do not worry - I did not get the food poisoning from any of the restaurants I blogged about here). I can’t believe I’ve been to over countries 30 and this was my first time getting food poisoning! This restaurant was absolutely beautiful and I ended up getting sick right after they brought the bread so we didn’t get to eat anything however I would highly recommend trying this place again as it looked absolutely gorgeous, and the dishes seemed incredible.

Aline Parnagian
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