Our journey to Ireland begins this morning. We gather at our pickup locations, travel together to Portland International Airport, and check in as a group for our overnight flight to Shannon. Our Tour Director is with us from the first pickup and will remain alongside us for every day of the tour.

10:30 AM Depart Portland for Shannon, Ireland (approximate). Overnight: In flight.

9:00 AM Arrive Shannon Airport (approximate).

10:45 AM Arrive Bunratty Castle Hotel for check-in. Our rooms are held for early arrival, so there is time to freshen up and set down our bags before the day properly begins.

We land at Shannon and step out into County Clare, where our coach and driver are waiting to carry us the short distance to the village of Bunratty. The Shannon estuary opens out below the village, and the fifteenth-century castle stands just across the way.

The afternoon is ours to rest or wander. Some of us will want a quiet hour in our rooms after the overnight flight, and others will set out to walk the hotel grounds or stroll down to the shops at Bunratty Mills. Our Tour Director is on hand throughout the afternoon for anything we need.

We gather for a welcome social hour, where we meet our travelling companions and raise a first glass to the days ahead.

Dinner follows at the hotel, and it is a warm and unhurried introduction to Irish hospitality.

Overnight: Bunratty Castle Hotel, Bunratty, County Clare. Tonight we sleep with the sound of the River Shannon nearby and a full journey in front of us.

After breakfast we walk the short distance to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, where nineteenth-century Ireland has been reassembled cottage by cottage across twenty-six acres.

After breakfast we walk the short distance to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, where nineteenth-century Ireland has been reassembled cottage by cottage across twenty-six acres. Costumed residents tend the gardens, work the forge, and bake soda bread over open fires, and they are glad to stop and talk. A horse-drawn carriage ride through the park is included for all of us, which is a lovely way to take in the grounds without a long walk.

Lunch is on our own within the park, where a traditional pub and several tea rooms sit among the cottages.

The afternoon is ours to browse the craft shops, look through the castle itself, or return to the hotel for a rest before the evening. The village is compact and everything is within an easy walk.

Tonight we are guests at the Bunratty Castle Medieval Banquet, held in the great hall of the castle by candlelight. We are welcomed with a goblet of mead, served a hearty four-course meal, and entertained by the castle singers and harpists throughout the evening. It is theatrical and thoroughly enjoyable, and it is one of the experiences our guests remember longest. We return to the hotel on foot afterward.

Overnight: Bunratty Castle Hotel, Bunratty, County Clare.

We leave Bunratty after breakfast and travel south through County Clare to the water’s edge at Killimer.

Board the ferry and cross the mouth of the Shannon estuary into County Kerry, a short and scenic sailing with the open Atlantic to the west. Those who wish may stay on deck for the crossing and watch for dolphins in the channel.

We break our journey in the market town of Tralee, where lunch is on our own and there is time to stretch and look around.

By mid-afternoon we arrive in Dingle town and check into our hotel on the main street.

Later we visit the Dingle Distillery for a tour and a tasting, where a small local team produces gin, vodka, and whiskey in copper stills within sight of the harbour.

We return to the hotel with time to settle in before dinner is served in the hotel restaurant.

Overnight: Dingle Benners Hotel, Dingle, County Kerry.

This morning we drive the Slea Head loop, which many consider the most beautiful stretch of coast road in Ireland. We stop at the roadside crucifix above the sea and again at the Coumeenoole viewpoint, where the cliffs fall away toward the Blasket Islands. At the Blasket Centre in Dunquin we learn about the island community that lived here until 1953, when the last families came ashore for good. It is a remarkable story, and this small community produced more published writers for its size than anywhere in Ireland, several of them women whose accounts of island life are read to this day.

Lunch is included at the Blasket Centre, looking out toward the islands themselves.

Afterward we finish the loop at Gallarus Oratory, a drystone chapel that has stood watertight and unmortared for some thirteen hundred years, reached by a short level walk from the road.

We return to Dingle in mid-afternoon, and the remainder of the day is ours to explore the town at our own pace.

Tonight we gather at the Dingle Cookery School for a hands-on class and the meal we make ourselves. We prepare a seafood chowder and a loaf of brown soda bread, guided every step of the way, and then sit down together to enjoy our efforts. It is a genuinely good evening and one that tends to produce a great deal of laughter.

Overnight: Dingle Benners Hotel, Dingle, County Kerry.

We say farewell to the peninsula after breakfast and travel east across Kerry and into County Cork. The road carries us past Killarney and its lakes and on toward the harbour town of Midleton. There are comfort stops along the way, and the countryside through this stretch is some of the greenest we will see.

At Midleton we tour the Jameson Distillery, set in handsome eighteenth-century stone buildings and home to the largest pot still in the world. The tour concludes with a comparative tasting, and lunch is included nearby.

Lunch is included nearby after the Jameson Distillery tour.

From Midleton we continue north to the medieval city of Kilkenny, where we check into our hotel for the next two nights.

Dinner this evening is close at hand, with traditional music to accompany it.

Kilkenny is a compact and welcoming city, and our hotel sits within a short stroll of the castle and the narrow lanes of the Medieval Mile. Those who would like a walk before bed will find the castle floodlit and worth the few minutes it takes to reach.

Overnight: Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny.

At Jerpoint Glass in Stoneyford we watch the glassblowers gather molten glass on the pipe and turn it into finished pieces in a matter of minutes, which is mesmerising to witness.

We continue to Bennettsbridge and the pottery of Nicholas Mosse, whose hand-decorated spongeware is made from local clay and known well beyond Ireland.

We return to Kilkenny for an included lunch in the city centre.

The rest of the day is ours to enjoy as we please. Kilkenny Castle and its parkland are a few steps away, the Medieval Mile Museum and Saint Canice’s Cathedral are within an easy walk, and the Kilkenny Design Centre occupies the old castle stableyard directly opposite. Some of us will want to simply find a comfortable chair and watch the city go by.

The evening is at leisure. Kilkenny has an abundance of good restaurants and traditional pubs within a few minutes of the hotel, and our Tour Director is happy to suggest somewhere that suits. Dinner tonight is on our own.

Overnight: Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny.

We travel north this morning into the Wicklow Mountains and the wooded valley of Glendalough. Here a monastic city founded by Saint Kevin in the sixth century still stands beside two dark lakes, its round tower rising above the ruins and the old burial ground. A level path leads from the visitor centre to the monastic site, and the setting is quiet and quite beautiful.

Visit the monastic city founded by Saint Kevin in the sixth century, beside two lakes, with a round tower and old burial ground.

A short drive brings us to the village of Avoca and the oldest working woollen mill in Ireland, where hand-weavers have worked the looms since 1723. We watch the weaving, look through the mill shop, and take our included lunch in the garden café.

Lunch is included at the garden café in Avoca after visiting the mill.

From Avoca we continue into Dublin and check into our hotel overlooking Saint Stephen’s Green, with Grafton Street a block away.

Dinner this evening is in the city, an easy walk from the hotel. Our location could hardly be more central, and the streets around the Green are lively and pleasant in the evening.

Overnight: The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Dublin

Our first full day in Dublin begins with the Viking Splash Tour, an amphibious tour that takes in the Georgian squares and the old Viking settlement before driving straight into the Grand Canal Basin and continuing by water. It is an entertaining and genuinely informative introduction to the city.

After the Viking Splash Tour there is free time around Grafton Street and Saint Stephen’s Green.

In the early afternoon we board a beautifully restored vintage double-decker bus for a traditional afternoon tea served as we tour the city. Sandwiches, scones, and pastries arrive at our seats while Dublin passes the windows, and it is a thoroughly civilised way to see a capital. It is a generous spread and most of us will find it stands in place of lunch.

Later we join a masterclass at the Irish Whiskey Museum and learn to build a proper Irish coffee, which we then sit down and enjoy.

The evening is ours. Dublin offers a remarkable range of restaurants, music houses, and theatres, nearly all of them within a short walk of the hotel, and our Tour Director can point us toward whatever appeals. Dinner tonight is on our own.

Overnight: The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Dublin

Today belongs entirely to us. A hop-on hop-off bus pass is provided, and the route connects nearly everything we might wish to see, with buses running throughout the day. Trinity College and the Book of Kells are a short walk from the hotel, as are the National Gallery and the National Museum.

Some of us will spend the day in the museums, others at Kilmainham Gaol or the Guinness Storehouse, and others browsing the shops along Grafton Street and Nassau Street. Lunch is on our own, wherever the day takes us. There is no schedule to keep and no need to hurry.

We come back together for dinner this evening and share what we each discovered during the day, which is always one of the pleasures of a free day on tour. The restaurant is a few minutes from the hotel on foot. Tomorrow we leave the city and turn west.

Overnight: The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Dublin

We leave Dublin this morning and travel west into the midlands and the town of Tullamore. At the Tullamore D.E.W. Visitor Centre we take a guided tasting and learn how a triple-distilled Irish whiskey differs from its Scottish neighbours. Lunch afterward is on our own in the town, which sits along the Grand Canal and is pleasant to walk.

Our afternoon begins at Clonmacnoise, the great monastic city founded on the banks of the Shannon in the sixth century, where high crosses and round towers stand above the river in a wide and windswept setting. We continue to Athlone and to Sean’s Bar, recognised as the oldest pub in Ireland, with parts of its wattle-and-wicker walls dating to the ninth century. From there the road carries us west to Galway city, where we check in for the final three nights of our journey.

Dinner this evening is close to the hotel in the heart of the city. Galway is a place of musicians and street performers, and something is usually happening within a few streets of Eyre Square. Our hotel has stood on the square since 1852 and is a comfortable base for the days ahead.

Overnight: The Hardiman, Galway, County Galway

We set out early for Connemara, a landscape of bog, mountain, and water that is unlike anywhere else in Ireland. The road carries us through the Maam Valley with the Twelve Bens rising around us, and we stop where the views are finest. By mid-morning we reach Kylemore Abbey, a Gothic revival castle set against a wooded hillside above its own still lake. Built in the nineteenth century and home since 1920 to a community of Benedictine sisters who fled Belgium during the First World War, the estate has been in their care for more than a century.

We have the greater part of the morning at Kylemore to tour the abbey, walk the grounds, and visit the restored Victorian walled garden that the community brought back from ruin, with a shuttle to carry us between the two.

We return to Galway in the early afternoon, and the rest of the day is ours. Hop-on hop-off trolley passes are provided, and we are set down at Eyre Square within a few minutes of the Latin Quarter, Shop Street, and the Spanish Arch. Lunch is on our own, taken wherever the afternoon leads, and the hotel door is right there for anyone who would rather rest.

We gather again for dinner in the city. Galway is a place of musicians and street performers, and there is usually something happening within a few streets of the square. It has been a full and rewarding day in the west of Ireland.

Overnight: The Hardiman, Galway, County Galway

Our final full day takes us south along the coast road through Kinvara, where Dunguaire Castle stands on its own small point over the bay. We enter the Burren, a vast limestone landscape where Arctic and Mediterranean wildflowers grow side by side in the cracks of the rock. At Hazel Mountain Chocolate, a small bean-to-bar maker in a converted stone farmhouse, we take a tour and a tasting.

At Hazel Mountain Chocolate, a small bean-to-bar maker in a converted stone farmhouse, we take a tour and a tasting.

We continue to the Burren Perfumery at Carron, the oldest working perfumery in Ireland and run by women since its founding. We look through the herb garden and the workshop.

Lunch is included in the tea room at the Burren Perfumery.

In the afternoon we reach the Cliffs of Moher, where the rock face drops seven hundred feet to the Atlantic and the view runs north to the Aran Islands. The visitor centre is built into the hillside and the exhibition inside is excellent, and there is ample time to take in the cliffs from the viewing platforms.

We return to Galway for our farewell dinner, where we raise a last glass together and look back on all the miles and the many places behind us. It is always a fond evening, and a few new friendships tend to be sealed over it. We pack tonight for an early start in the morning.

Farewell dinner in Galway, celebrating the journey and new friendships.

Overnight: The Hardiman, Galway, County Galway

We take breakfast at the hotel, say our farewells to Ireland, and travel to Shannon Airport for our flight home.

Depart Galway for Shannon Airport at 7:45 AM. Arrive Shannon Airport for check-in and United States preclearance at 9:30 AM.

Depart Shannon for Portland at 12:30 PM (approximate). Arrive Portland International Airport at 9:30 PM (approximate).