The Perfect Summer Road Trip: Northern & Western Ireland

There’s something about Ireland that elevates a summer road. The journey quickly becomes a grand historical epic (with the landscapes to match) and a Guinness-fuelled pub story.  

One of my biggest Irish travel hills to die on is to get out of Dublin at all costs if you want to see the real country.   No tourist trap Temple Bar pubs here thank you very much.

Until this summer I’d never ventured to Ireland’s north west but was blown away - sometime literally, always metaphorically - by the beauty of the landscape and the warmth of the welcome.  

Yes, as for every Ireland roadtrip, you’ll need a raincoat, and possibly an extra stomach for the fried breakfasts cooked to order in each B&B you overnight in. As with every blog in this series, 5 days isn't sufficient to see everything on an Ireland roadtrip - far from it. But this itinierary gives a mix of sweeping coastlines, historical interest and more than enough good craic to last long after you venture home.

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At A Glance: The Perfect Ireland Road Trip

Hire A Car

A must for this trip, public transport won't help you too much here outside of the Belfast-Dublin-Galway triangle.

The trip works equally well from Belfast or Dublin but I’d always book car rental ahead.  I’m not wedded to any individual rental company so I use Booking to find the most competitive deal. 

Belfast tends to be cheaper for car rental but Dublin is typically cheaper to find flights to (thank you Ryanair!)  There’s very rarely an issue taking a car across the border but worth checking your paperwork to ensure no nasty surprises.

Speaking of nasty surprises - make sure you have excess insurance (either through a third party or from the rental company directly) – Irish car rental is notorious for finding creative reasons to charge you.

Where To Stay

For our trip, we chose to stay in rural B&Bs away from the main cities.  These offer quintessential Irish hospitality, airy (often enormous) rooms – a million miles away from generic hotel décor – and cooked-to-order breakfasts that set you up for the day.

• Near Belfast – Keef Halla House.  Located close to Belfast International airport, about 20 minutes from the city.  Huge, comfortable rooms.  The Ulster Fry breakfast deserves awards, as does the friendly service.  Rooms from £80 / €95 / $110 per night.

• Near Derry – Ardgort Country House - About 30 minutes from Derry, close to the border.  Spacious rooms, many with huge balconies, ideal for the first tea of the morning.  Cooked to order breakfast is again a hit. Rooms from £75 / €90 / $105 per night.

• Near Sligo (Bundoran) -  Maddens Bridge Bar & B&B – The annex of a pub meaning you’re no more than 20 steps for the first post-drive Guinness.  Equally close to the beach and seaside attractions.  Smaller but clean and cosy rooms.  Ample parking nearby.  Rooms from £110 / €130 / $150 per night.

• Near Galway (Kinvara) – Fallons B&B – Deceptively sizeable B&B, a short stroll into the pubs and harbour of Kinvara, a 30-minute drive outside of Galway but one of my favourite stops on this trip.  Airy attic rooms with powerful shower.  Quick service and another excellent breakfast.  Rooms from £125 / €150 / $170 per night.

What To Do

• Game of Thrones Studio Tour & Transport from Belfast – If you fancy ditching the car for the day, this tour will take you to/from the studio from the centre of Belfast

• Galway Walking & Food Tour – Packing in culture, cuisine and some bloody brilliant clam chowder, Gerry is one of the top guides you’ll ever come across on a walking tour with the inevitable good craic.

• Cliffs of Moher & Wild Atlantic Way – If you had one pint too many in Galway and don’t feel up to driving winding country roads, this tour gives you the best of the landscape en route to the Cliffs of Moher.

  
  

Day 1: Belfast & Game of Thrones Studio Tour

First things first, pick up your hire car in Dublin or Belfast.  If the former, it’s an easy 2hr drive north.

Pro-tip: petrol is much cheaper in Northern Ireland to be sure to fill up before heading back over the border.

Start in Belfast, a city that’s shrugged off its troubled past and reinvented itself with swagger, great food, and just enough edge to keep things interesting.  The Cathedral Quarter is surprising excellent for street art and strong coffee.  The relatively new Titanic Quarter dominates the old shipyard area – anyone with even a passing interest in the history of Belfast’s most infamous creation will want to head for Titanic Belfast (10am–5pm, £19.50/€22).  Pass the Celine Dion.

After channeling your inner Celine Dion, head to The Game of Thrones Studio Tour in Banbridge (10am - 6:30pm, €34) - about a 30-minute drive outside Belfast or join an organised coach from the city.

As big a fan of the show as I was, I’ve always found set/studio tours underwhelming but this one smashed the mould.  In between crash courses in prosthetics, costumes and interactive games (I look damn good as a White Walker), you’ll recall memories of the show you’d forgotten and learn a load along the way.  Just don’t mention Season 8 – honestly, Bran as king? Pfft…

Anyway, book ahead for a set departure time.  If you’ve got your own vehicle, you’ll be parking in a shopping centre nearby before a shuttle bus whisks you to Westeros. For those not wanting to drive out to the studios, tours with pick-up from Belfast operate several times per day – book here (advance bookings in summer especially recommended).

Back in Belfast, reward yourself with dinner at Mourne Seafood Bar (excellent oysters) and maybe a pint at Kelly’s Cellars, one of the oldest pubs in the city.   For an authentic B&B experience, decamp from the city and stay at the wonderful Keef Halla House.  Save some space for the Ulster Fry breakfast, you’ll be glad of it!

Day 2: The Antrim Coast & Derry

The Antrim Coast is Northern Ireland’s Instagram runway: every bend looks like it’s auditioning for a travel calendar.   This is very much a ‘sensible shoes’ type of day

Your best bet is to be up early and stay one step ahead of the tourist crowds.  First up is Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (9:30am–6pm, £13/€15), precariously connecting the mainland with an islet. Walk the rope bridge, look down, and immediately regret your life choices.  You get the idea.

If you’re still in GoT mode, stop at Ballintoy Harbour, which features as Pyke in the show, before the main event. A short drive further on brings you to Giant’s Causeway (9am–6pm, £15/€17 pay at parking lot).  It’s a 20-25 minute walk down to the famous hexagonal basalt columns look so improbably neat you must just for a second believe the myth of Fin MacCool. The columns can get slippery so beware leaping between them for your perfect in-motion Instagram shot!

Further along the coast, Bushmills is well worth a stop for its distillery and free samples before arriving into Derry (a.k.a. Londonderry – it’s a long story), probably the most poignant symbol of Northern Ireland’s troubled past but hopeful future.

A circuit of the 17th-century city walls is a logical way to orientate yourself, peeling off at the Bogside for an up-close view of the protest murals that made the city (in)famous fifty years ago and are still a proud feature of the city to this day.  As Faulkner said, the past is never dead, it’s not even past – you’ll feel this in Derry more than anywhere else in Ireland.  There’s also some more modern street art celebrating Derry Girls close to the centre – although sadly no reprise of the immortal line ‘the gay thing sort of cancels out the English thing’).

The pleasingly wavy 235m peace bridge across the Foyle is a more recent addition to the city, built in 2011 to better connect Unionist and Nationalist Areas.  It warrants an afternoon stroll to contemplate all you’ve learnt about this surprisingly attractive city.

Grab dinner at Badger’s Bar and Restaurant for no-nonsense pub grub – think Beef and Guinness stew or the ‘wait a second…’ Badger Burger.

Continuing your B&B collection, drive on 30 minutes and spend the night at Ardgort Country House with its enormous balconies, ideal for a nightcap.

Day 3: Slieve League, Ardara & Sligo

Outside of Dublin, if you ask visitors where they’ve been in Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher will likely get a mention.

Fancy a game of one-upmanship? Good, then read on.

If so, Day 3 gives you all the ammo you need.  From Derry, it’s less than an hour to the Slieve League Cliffs in Donegal.   They’re taller than the Cliffs of Moher – Europe’s highest sea cliffs in fact - and, seen from a distance, appear to be multicoloured.  You can walk up for free from the visitor centre car park but it’s much easier to just catch the shuttle bus (€9 – every 20-30 minutes or so).

Once there, walk in any direction (most head uphill) to lose the crowds and stare out into the Wild Atlantic.  For those with hiking boots, the Pilgrim’s Path is an enjoyable 3hr there-and-back hike along the cliffs.   One Man’s Pass (the clue’s in the name) is rather less enjoyable for those with any fear of heights.

You can grab lunch at the visitor centre or carry on into Ardara – a charming small town - known for its tweed shops and pubs where music sessions materialize out of thin air. Pop into Eddie Doherty’s Handwoven Tweed (Front Street, open daily 10am–6pm) for a demonstration…and probably a scarf.

The drive down the Donegal coast reveals stretches of continuously sandy beaches and inviting seaside towns, which are well worth a stop on a dry day (sun is a bonus but glorious when it does arrive). At low tide Rossnowlagh beach stretches to the horizon with surfers looking like specks in the distance.  Bundoran is a more bucket and spade-type destination with inviting pubs and a good opportunity for fish and chips on the front.  We spent the night here in the annex of Maddens Bridge Bar & B&B.

Sligo is about 30 minutes away and can be visited either this evening or tomorrow morning.

The town is most famous for inspiring W.B. Yeats (his grave is in Drumcliffe churchyard on the way from Bundoran – it’s clearly signposted). If you opt for a morning visit, check out the Yeats Society Sligo (10am–5pm, €10).  At any time of day, walk along the Garavogue River is pleasant before before dinner and the inevitable pint.  Hargadon Brothers is the dark, old-fashioned live music heaven you image for any Irish pub with excellent food.

Day 4: Cong, Galway & Kinvara

Day 4 brought on one of our biggest surprises of the trip.  We headed first to the village of Cong, where John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara once flirted their way through The Quiet Man.  It’s an absolutely beautiful riverside village, ideal for strolling.  While there, pop into Ashford Castle grounds (day visitors €20, open 9am–6pm), then pop into the Quiet Man Museum (10am–4pm, €7) if you’re a fan of 1950s cinema and/or tweed hats.

Less than 45 minutes away, Galway is by far the biggest city we visited on this road trip. It’s an enchanting city, with some of the best live music I’ve ever seen (the buskers are practically licensed professionals). Grab a bowl of seafood chowder at Brasserie on the Corner – it’s honestly the best you’ll have this side of Boston – peruse the Galway Market and stroll down to the Latin Quarter (open weekends and daily during July and August, free entry) and on to the harbour, which feels like an oasis of calm compared to the city.  On a previous visit, I’d combined the walking and cuisine on a superb food tour of the city, which I highly recommend for first time visitors.

On summer weekends, I’d definitely recommend sparing yourself the city centre hassle and parking in Dyke St car park (€6 for the day) from where it’s a 15 minute walk to the Latin Quarter.

We visited during Galway Race Week, which meant the city was packed, necessitating a stay 30 minutes outside the city in the waterside town of Kinvara. 

We needn’t have worried, it’s a stunner. Its very own castle, Dunguaire Castle (10am–5pm, €8) looks like it was designed specifically to appear on jigsaw puzzles and lies less a 15-minute walk from the main street.  I’m told the sunset is the stuff screensavers are made of but our afternoon turned grey so not showing the castle in its best light.

Kinvara has at least seven pubs on its principle street but we settled for Connolly’s on the harbourfront.  As tempted as it was to repeat the seafood chowder order from Galway, we settled for the local fish and chips – fresh, huge portions and washed down with the inevitable black stuff.  Stumble back via several more pubs along the high street to the ever-so-comfy beds at Fallons B&B. Be ready for another huge breakfast!

Day 5: Cliffs of Moher, Ennistymon & Athlone

Our final day is where you can start to improvise.

Given they were less than an hour away from Kinvara, it seemed a crying shame to miss the Cliffs of Moher. They open at 8am (till 7pm in summer, €12 online/€15 at gate). Go – I cannot emphasise this enough - early to avoid crowds.  We arrived at 9.30am on a summer Saturday and counted over 20 tour buses already there.  

The walk on either side of the cliffs remains as dramatic as ever dramatic and, true to form, the further you venture from your car, the fewer tourists you’ll find.  Boats going to and from the Arran islands often sweep by the cliffs.  As a cliff connoiseur, you can compare and contrast Moher with Slieve League.

If you want to ditch the car for the day, a host of day trips operate from Galway City to the cliffs – this tour is one of the best, taking in the Wild Atlantic Way and stopping in the harbour village of Doolin, one of Ireland’s live music capitals

Our next stop was one of my favourite places the first time I ventured to the west of Ireland, Ennistymon.  Located on a series of picturesque waterfalls on the River Inagh, it’s pretty even by Irish standards.  The shopfronts are attractive and well-kept. Grab coffee at Café Fergus and don’t miss The Cheese Press on the high street for local specialities – who knew garlic and nettle worked in a cheddar?

From here, it’s a 2½hr journey back to Dublin along the Galway-Dublin toll road.  We were looking for a stop off en route and found a tremendous one in Athlone (open Tuesday-Saturday 9.30am – 6pm in summer, €12 ), slap bang in the middle of Ireland and approximately halfway back.

It’s home to a forbidding castle next to the River Shannon which divides the town, as well as a superb Viking festival on the first weekend of August, which we stumbled upon and stayed for several hours.

Perhaps fittingly, our final stop of the trip was

Sean’s Bar, close to the waterfront, which is officially - don't ask how this can be verified - Ireland’s oldest pub (circa 900 AD). 

Not many better ways to finish the trip than a celebratory Guinness in a pub that’s older than most countries!