6 Days in Ireland: Dublin & the Wild Atlantic Way

A day-by-day itinerary for Dublin, Ireland: real activities, restaurants and hotels with prices and booking links. Copy it and make it yours.

Dublin, Ireland · 6 days · 26 activities · free to copy and customize

Day 1 — Dublin on foot

13:00 Dublin Express from DUB (€8). ≈€8, 30 min to the centre. No car yet — Dublin punishes them and the west rewards them; collect on Day 3.
14:30 Georgian-quarter hotel, 2 nights (€400). ≈€200/night around Merrion Square — Dublin hotel prices sting; book early and wince once.
16:00 Trinity College & the Book of Kells (€25). ≈€25 timed. The Long Room's 200,000 volumes under a barrel roof — arguably Europe's most beautiful library even mid-restoration.
19:00 Pints and stew, but not in Temple Bar (€30). ≈€30. The Temple Bar district charges €10 a pint for the privilege of tourists; walk five minutes to Kehoe's or The Long Hall for the real article at €6.50.

09:30 Kilmainham Gaol (€8). €8, TIMED — books out days ahead. The 1916 executions happened in this yard; no site explains modern Ireland faster.
12:00 Guinness Storehouse or the quieter distilleries (€26). ≈€26 for the Storehouse's seven storeys and Gravity Bar pint — or Pearse Lyons in a converted church at half the crowd.
14:30 Lunch in the Liberties (€20).
16:30 St Patrick's & Marsh's Library (€10). Marsh's (€5) is the 1707 library where readers were locked in cages with the books — Swift's copy annotations included.
20:00 Trad session hunt (€15). Free music, paid pints: The Cobblestone in Smithfield is the musicians' own pub — arrive by 21:00 for a stool.

09:00 Collect the car, cross the country (€280). ≈€45/day ×4 + the one-way surcharge if dropping at Shannon. M6 to Galway is 2h30; Ireland is smaller than the songs suggest.
13:00 Galway B&B, 2 nights (€320). ≈€160/night in Salthill or the Latin Quarter. A proper B&B breakfast eliminates lunch — this is a feature.
15:00 Galway's Latin Quarter & the Spanish Arch. Free. Buskers on Shop Street set the national standard; the Corrib runs hard through the middle of it all.
19:30 Oysters and brown bread (€35). ≈€35. Galway's oysters have their own festival for a reason — September, if you're timing.

09:00 Coast road south: the Burren. R477 around Black Head — grey limestone pavement to the sea, orchids in the cracks. Slow road, on purpose.
11:30 Cliffs of Moher (€10). ≈€10 parking/entry (book online, off-peak slots cheaper). 214 m straight down; walk 10 minutes either direction along the trail and the coach crowds evaporate. Mind the edge — the signs are not decoration in Atlantic wind.
14:00 Chowder in Doolin (€18). ≈€18. The trad-music village does seafood chowder as its second art form.
16:00 Poulnabrone dolmen & Aillwee (€7). The 5,800-year-old portal tomb is free and startling on its limestone moonscape.
20:00 Doolin or Galway session (€10). Both ends of the day's loop host nightly trad — Doolin's McGann's if you stayed coastal.

09:30 N59 into Connemara. Bogs, loughs and the Twelve Bens — the emptiest beautiful road of the trip. Sheep have right of way by custom and by physics.
11:30 Kylemore Abbey & the walled garden (€16). ≈€16. A Victorian fantasy castle on a mirror lough, now Benedictine — the garden a mile away predates the word 'restoration'.
13:30 Lunch in Letterfrack or Clifden (€20).
15:30 Sky Road, Clifden. Free. An 11 km loop above the bay that ends every Connemara argument about the best view.
18:30 Last west-coast dinner in Galway (€35).

09:30 Drive to Shannon (1h) or back to Dublin (2h30). Shannon's one-way drop fee usually beats three extra motorway hours — run both numbers when booking.
12:00 Final tea and a scone situation (€8). The scone is load-bearing in Irish culture. Accept the cream question with grace.
14:00 Drop the car, fly. US pre-clearance exists at Shannon and Dublin — add an hour if you're crossing the Atlantic.

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