Highlights: The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, Neolithic Burial grounds
Overnight: Galway

Cead mile failte… one hundred thousand welcomes!!
Arrival to Shannon airport. You driver awaits to greet you and escort you to your awaiting luxury touring vehicle. This morning we travel to The Cliffs of Moher, a 700 foot limestone rock-face towering over the churning Atlantic below.  This awesome vertical plunge continues for 5 miles along the coast and is crowned at its highest point by a lookout- tower, (O’Brien’s tower), built in the 18th c. by the O’Brien’s, lords of the region.
Continue through the craggy lunar landscape of the Burren. Botanists flock to these hills where rare alpine plants and flowers grow in profusion in the rocky crevasses. Underground there’s a network of caves and rivers. The area is also rich in historic archeology including numerous Neolithic burial places.
Finally, on to Galway; Ireland's most "Irish" city because of its location as the gateway to Irish-speaking Connemara.  Notice the street-signs, shop names & advertising slogans in Irish. Galway began to preserve its historic buildings long before it was fashionable to do so. Your driver will take you on a brief orientation tour before you check into your centrally located Hotel.

Evening at leisure.

Highlights: Spiddal, Kylemore Abbey, Kyle more Lough, Clifden
Overnight: Galway

After breakfast we depart for a day to soak up the magnificent scenery of Connemara which has inspired poets, novelists and artists for centuries. We take the coast road west through the Irish-speaking villages of Spiddal, Casla & Screeb.  Then inland to Maam Cross and west to visit Kylemore Abbey, an impressive 19th C. Castle magnificently set on the shore of Kylemore Lough and sheltered by a purple-clad mountain which seems to rise from the castle battlements. The Great Hall houses a flag captured by the Irish Brigade at the Battle of Fontenoy. The castle is now a boarding school for girls, run by the Benedictine nuns who also operate a unique gift & craft shop in the grounds. Next, nestled amid the Twelve Ben’s Mountain range, Clifden is the picturesque capital of Connemara.  It was here that Alcock and Brown landed in a bog after the first non-stop transatlantic flight in 1919.

Return through a succession of vistas - of purple mountains, azure lakes and whitewashed cottages through Oughterard Galway.

Evening at leisure.

Highlights: Boyne Valley, Newgrange, Knowth Burial Mound
Overnight: Dublin

We're off across the width of Ireland this morning - not as daunting a journey as it may sound- since its only 136 miles from Galway Bay to Dublin Bay! Cross the River Shannon at Athlone, in the very center of Ireland, the birthplace of world-famous tenor of the 1920’s & 30’s, Count John McCormack. Nowadays it is a very popular boating center with continental Europeans who like to spend their vacations in cabin-cruisers, floating through Ireland's unpolluted waters.
On then to the rich pasturelands of Counties Kildare and Meath - dotted with stud-farms that produce the thoroughbred horses for which Ireland has gained world renown.  Many of these are owned by the international "jet-set'...from the Aga Khan to Hollywood film stars to European royalty.  
Thirty miles north of Dublin, we visit the Valley of the Boyne, Ireland's Royal necropolis, older than the Pyramids of Egypt.  To the Druids, the Boyne was Ireland’s most sacred river.
Visit the Bru na Boinne (the Palace of the Boyne) Heritage Center and either Newgrange or Knowth Burial Mound. Both are well over 5,000 year old. They are just 2 of dozens in the Valley. Newgrange is astounding in its sheer size and mathematical precision, perfectly aligned with the Winter Solstice. Knowth has over one-third of all the Stone-Age art in Europe (some of it over 7,000 years old) and excavations are ongoing.

Evening at leisure

Highlights: St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity College, Christchurch Cathedral,                    Aras an Uachtaran, GPO
Overnight: Dublin

Eleven centuries of history come alive as you tour Ireland’s capital, Dublin City, this morning. See parts of its 10th century walls near Wood Quay where remnants of the 9th & 10th century Viking settlement of Dyflin, were excavated and 12th C. St. Patrick's Cathedral, the largest church ever built in Ireland.  Jonathan Swift, who wrote "Gulliver's Travels”, was Dean here in the 18th C.  Just yards away, see Christchurch Cathedral - another stunning 12th century cathedral. Nearby see Dublin Castle, the nerve-center of British power in Ireland for about 800 years. 

Drive by Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university.  You should return here on your own to see one of the world's most beautifully illuminated manuscripts, the 8th C. Book of Kells. This copy of the Gospels was hand made and elaborately decorated by Irish monks about 1200 years ago using vegetable dyes on sheepskin vellum.

See the serene symmetry of the 18th century Georgian Squares and note the numerous plaques marking the dwelling places of world-class literary giants, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, etc.  Even Dracula was arguably a Dubliner - his "inventor", Bram Stoker lived a stone's throw from St. Stephen's Green. 
Drive by the General Post Office in O’Connell Street, still showing bullet marks from the 1916 Rebellion that led to Irish freedom. In the Phoenix Park, the largest urban park in Europe, you’ll do a double-take as you drive by Aras an Uachtaran (the residence of Ireland’s President). You think you are looking at the White House, no accident, since the Irish architect James Hoban used this building as his inspiration for the White House in Washington D.C.!

Afternoon and evening at leisure.

Highlights: The Rock of Cashel, Cormac's Chapel Blarney, Killarney
Overnight: Killarney

This morning we travel to The Rock of Cashel, a stately limestone outcrop topped with medieval ruins. It is also known as Cashel of the Kings. Reputedly the site of the conversion of Aenghus the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century AD. Long before the Norman invasion The Rock of Cashel was the seat of the High Kings of Munster, although there is little structural evidence of their time here. Most of the buildings on the current site date from the 12th and 13th centuries when the rock was gifted to the Church. See the 12th century highly-decorated Cormac's Chapel, the large cathedral and a round tower
Our next stop is a few miles north of Cork City, in the charming village of Blarney.  Blarney is the site of the 15th C. ruined MacCarthy castle that has the famous "Stone of Eloquence" embedded high in its battlements. If you wish, you may climb 120 stone steps, lie on your back and lean out backward to kiss MacCarthy’s magic Stone, you are guaranteed the “gift of the gab”! For those opting not to "kiss", you may shop at Blarney Woollen Mills, one of Ireland's best stocked craft and gift shops.
Then on over the Cork Kerry Mountains to approach the Killarney Town, check into your boutique-style hotel, right in the heart of Killarney, yet set back from the traffic & surrounded by pretty gardens.

Highlights: Killorglin, Waterville, Derrynane Estate, Sneem, Moll's Gap,                    Ladies View, Killarney Lakes
Overnight: Killarney

 The Ring of Kerry Day Tour. On this famous scenic tour the route winds over mountain roads, by sandy beaches, through villages with names translated from the ancient Gaelic language- names like Cahirciveen, Derrynane, Sneem.
At Beaufort, your driver will show you the ancient "writing" of Ireland, two-thousand year old Ogham - carved on a group of stone pillars - and you'll drive through Killorglin, where each year since pagan days a Puck goat is crowned as king and reigns over the 3 day "Puck Fair" (August)!
Nearby, you can visit the Dogs on Dingle Bay...award-winning farmer Brendan Ferris, his 10 breeds of sheep from around the world and his team of dogs at work.  An impressive exercise in precision work!
Near Caherciveen, beyond Ballinskelligs Bay you’ll see the craggy rock-islands known as the Skelligs and your driver/guide will tell you about the 6th C. hermit monks who retreated there, carved stone steps to the summit and lived in stone beehive huts, 800 windswept feet above the ocean.
You’ll drive by Derrynane Estate, near Waterville. It was the home of Daniel O'Connell, the "Liberator".  Education was forbidden to Catholics under the tyrannical Penal Laws so young Daniel was sent to college in France.  There he saw the bloodshed of the French Revolution & was forever afterwards against violence. Using only his legal and oratorical skills he won Catholic emancipation for Ireland in the early 19th c. Almost every town in Ireland has a street named after him.
Encircling Ireland's highest mountains, the Magillicuddy Reeks, you'll descend from Moll's Gap along the three "Lakes of Killarney" and back into Killarney town. 
Evening at leisure.

Optional Extras: Siamsa Tire.  Attend a performance at the National Folk Theatre of Ireland nearby in Tralee.
Or…Kate Kearney’s Cottage, Traditional Dinner & Entertainment at the Gap of Dunloe, Killarney

Highlights: Inch, Dingle, Slea Head, Views of the famous Blasket Islands,                    Gallarus Oratory
Overnight: Killarney

Today we depart for the most westerly point of Europe, The Dingle Peninsula, made famous by two movies that showcased the scenery - “Ryan's Daughter” and “Far & Away.”.  Apart from its scenery, the area is one of the richest in Ireland in archaeological relics.  In a small area near the tip of the peninsula there are many early-Christian huts and crosses and pre-Christian forts.
St. Brendan, the Navigator, a local, sailed from Dingle way back in the 6th Century and discovered America!  Numerous accounts of his voyages, some dating back to the 8th C exist.
In medieval days, Dingle was the principal harbor in County Kerry. Today Dingle Town is one of the most popular little towns in Ireland with an array of fine restaurants & pubs - a good town for a lunch stops today.  The town is a haven for artists and artisans and so has some interesting shopping.
From the tip of the peninsula you can see the now-deserted Blasket Islands & perhaps you'd like to visit The Blasket Heritage Center in Dunquin...celebrating the cultural & literary traditions of the islanders before they were transferred to the mainland in the 1950's.  Several of the islanders wrote best-selling Irish-language books that are available in English translations

Evening at leisure in Killarney.

Highlights: Adare, Limerick, St. Johns Caslte, Bunratty Castle & Folk Park
Overnight: Bunratty

Travel through a succession of thriving market-towns -Abbeyfeale, Newcastle West, Rathkeale.  (It was from a little church near Rathkeale that Methodism was introduced into the U.S. by Philip Embury and Barbara Heck in 1760)
Stop to explore one of Ireland's prettiest and most unique villages - Adare.  In the 1700's, a group of Calvinist refugees from Germany were settled here. You can still see their names over shop-doors and their influence in the exotic flower-filled thatched-roof village that appears to have strayed out of a German fairy-tale!
Then on to the little village of Bunratty, home of 15th century Bunratty Castle & 19th century Bunratty Folk Park (visit), 400 year Durty Nelly’s Pub, Bunratty Village Mills Shopping Complex, Bunratty Winery & several other shops/restaurants. Spend time browsing through this marvelously maintained castle. Many of the original furnishings are still in place. Afterwards we check into the very close by Bunratty Castle Hotel

In the evening head to Bunratty Castle for a memorable experience in a wonderful setting with good food and entertainment. Take your place in the Great Hall for a medieval-style feast of excellent dishes and plenty of wine. During and after the meal the lords and ladies will serenade you with song and harp music, evocative of the middle Ages.

Sadly your tour has come to an end, this morning check out of your hotel. We will arrange a complementary transfer to the nearby Shannon airport.

Slán go foill!