On this podcast episode we go in depth on the Ireland countryside road trip that we took in September 2019. Check it out to get our thoughts on driving an RV, the different towns that we visited, and what our top recommendations are!
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Resources
- Detailed blog post on our Ireland itinerary
- Review of the Dingle Skellig Hotel
- Short video of the Slea Head Drive
Transcript
Rod: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. My name’s Rod.
Jess: And I’m Jess. And today we’re coming at you with all of the tips on traveling Ireland,
Rod: Ireland. That was at the top of my list until we visited Iceland.
Jess: So don’t start it off like that.
Rod: It was No, I think it’s a blast from the past. This was a family trip that we did in September of 2019. So I know we haven’t covered a lot of our Europe adventures on this podcast. So I think we’re gonna start here and there, providing little episodes on some of the places that we went to and recommend when you’re visiting Ireland.
Jess: So similar to our most recent Iceland Road trip with Ireland, there was a debate, do we rent a car or do we get an RV?
And somehow with Ireland, I won the debate and we got an RV. So we had a large RV while in Ireland, it was actually, it’s called like a seven berth family motor home that we rented from Spaceships UK. And this was a pretty spacious RV guys. We had like a little kitchen. There was definitely two beds for us to be comfy in.
There was a table, I mean it was a spacious, spacious RV. The bathroom. Yeah. But it was big. And I loved it. The kids were super comfy. It made the long travel days really nice cuz the kids had their car seats at like this table area. So they were coloring and playing games and it was like it was better than being in a car.
Mm-hmm. The one negative is is Ireland, when we got to these little towns we’re gonna talk about has some very narrow streets. I’m talking like narrow. And having this big RV made it very, very tricky when we got to different cities. So we almost would have to always park like on the outskirts of the city and then either like taxi in or walk.
Because it was just really almost impossible. I mean, it wasn’t a problem on like the long scenic drives, but it was a problem when we got to some of these cute little towns.
Rod: Yeah, and some of these drives I will tell you about. I think it’s. Even if I was driving even a rental car on it, I’d be a little bit nervous.
The fact that we were driving a motor home, it was quite the experience. I mean, you’ve got these like narrow passageways with cobblestone walls that are basically very narrow and protecting you from these beautiful, gorgeous cliffs, but those cliffs drop you directly into the ocean. So it was, it was pretty, not harrowing, but really interesting to be driving that. And we’re driving on the, on the other side of the road than what we’re used to in the US. So that was another kind of little wrinkle of getting used to, but we made it happen. We’d spent seven days. I think another thing that we considered was, do we spend a lot of time in the city, so when you fly in, you generally will fly into Dublin and Dublin is massive.
There’s so many things to do there. But what we ended up doing is we picked up the motor home pretty much immediately from the airport, and then from there we just set off and we decided to go on a road trip to explore more of the Irish countryside. So, this, this is a really weird thing to say, but this podcast episode will be all about Ireland, with the exception of Dublin, because we didn’t really spend much time in Dublin at all.
Jess: Yes, I have spent time in Dublin. Solo before kids, but there are cool things to see in Dublin. You have the Guinness Storehouse, which really cool to see where Guinness is made. Mm-hmm. They give you samples. There’s Temple Bar, there’s Dublin Castle, Trinity College. I mean, there is enough to see. I think had we done a 10 day trip, we definitely would’ve spent a day or two in Dublin.
Yeah, so we did not this time we landed and went straight to meet someone who we met through Instagram. Yeah. So that was really, really cool that we got to go and stay at their family with their family. They lived, what was it, like two hours?
Rod: It was, it was about an hour and a half from Dublin.
I think. I could be wrong, but it was a town. And I might say this wrong, I apologize in advance, but it was called Ballinasloe.
Jess: Yes. And this was Trans-Atlantic Leonards. So if you’re on Instagram, check them out. They live in Ireland. It’s actually a family. They were from the US and Ireland, so it was really cool.
Their kids were about the same age as ours, so the kids got to play. We went to a local fair with them. And the fair was so cool because like, unlike our fair games. Like everything at this fair was made and carved from wood.
Rod: And they had, yeah, so it’s like a wooden pinball table. Wooden little toys that the kids could play with.
Our kids were super entertained by that. Just seeing Ballinasloe, it’s really, you know, small countryside town in Ireland. We got to visit the pub there, walk around their streets and see the different shops. So it was a very charming introduction to Ireland, and I think that’s one of the themes that was recurring across our entire road trip is the people that we talked to and the people that we stayed with.
Super kind, always super friendly and willing to help give directions whenever we needed them. Or recommendations for places to visit. You know, thanks to the Leonard family, if you’re listening, not sure, but thank you for hosting us.
Jess: Yes, you’re more than welcome to visit us here in Florida. But we had, we were really grateful.
The kids were always excited to meet other people on the road as we went, and so it was just nice for them to have time to play in the backyard, to have other kids there. And so that was a really special moment. I know that’s not, necessarily available to all of you. I don’t know if they wanna host everyone.
That’s what we did day one and then from their house, we took off and went to Galway City and y’all, I found Galway to be so charming. I thought the streets were so adorable. The main street there is Quay Street. And it was beautiful. There’s like tons of pubs and restaurants and shopping and they have these beautiful strong flags between like the different buildings and it’s just picturesque and charming and I don’t know, I loved that city.
Yeah, I could have spent more time.
Rod: And the coffee there was really delicious too.
Jess: Some sights there include Galway Cathedral and the Iry Square.
Rod: Yeah, and I think that’s all within the Latin quarter of the city. We stayed. Just outside of the Latin Quarter because there was a motor home park where we were able to park the motor home and we’ve, we at first started driving through there, saw some parking garages and stuff, but the motor home wouldn’t have fit on there.
So we decided on the motor home park, it was pretty nice because, we were generally making reservations for these motor home parks as we were driving there. So I don’t know if it was a seasonal thing in terms of, this was early September, so not a lot of, you know, summer kind of peak season was happening.
So we were able to find spots to park our motor home in these parks and we could connect it to the power. We were able to use the stuff there to like clean out the toilets and all of that while we were there. And it was a quick either walk to the town or we could take a taxi or an Uber into that main area.
So it, it made it pretty simple to be able to get around in, and then we just go back to the motor home and sleep on the RV at night before heading on to the next adventure. So I think it all, it worked out relatively well. And there are some points in which we, would stay at a hotel and we’ll talk about that a little bit more cuz it was a very special situation.
But yes.
Jess: So day three, after spending time in Galway, which Galway. I wish we would’ve had one extra day there. I thought it was beautiful, but we had too much to see guys. So this was like a really fast-paced road trip, but I felt like at the end of it I was happy we did it that way cuz we saw so much. The next day we drove from Galway and we took our time and went to the Cliffs of Moher.
And the cliffs of more are really famous. And it was beautiful. I was amazed at just how big they were in scale and I was terrified for half the time there because there were, I mean, it’s like funny when I say the Instagrammers, cuz we do Instagram, but there were like, you know, the real in’s, like the solo young Instagrammers who were literally on like the edge of this cliff and there was like 40 mile an hour winds and I just was so nervous I was gonna witness someone’s last moments in life the whole time. I was like wanting to be all these young people’s moms like, stop doing that. You’re gonna fall.
Rod: So yeah. It’s so weird. The most of the cliffs there, at least from the visitor center area and on, is mostly fenced.
So most of that point is pretty safe. You know, there’s not a lot of risk to be walking down that area. However, there is a portion of it towards the edges from the visitor center where it’s not necessarily fenced. They might have put like some stakes on the grass with a little line kind of running through ’em.
So people would just cross a line, go as close to the cliff edge as possible and take those pictures. And definitely not recommended, but people were doing it. I guess it, you know, gets the thrill going and, and yeah, the, the weird part about that is those are where you get the most, like scenic pictures, but you know, is it worth it?
I don’t know.
Jess: Totally not, but it was truly beautiful. I feel like you can’t go to that part of Ireland and skip the Cliffs of Moher. It was absolutely gorgeous. It’s only two hours actually from Galway, so it’s really not a long stop. Like it’s a great mm-hmm. We got up early and left and it was beautiful.
I, I guess, I don’t know why, I just didn’t expect him to be that drastic. Yeah. In real life.
Rod: Even the drive itself from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher and then even ongoing onto Dingle, which was our next destination. It’s called the Wild Atlantic Way. So it’s a very scenic coastal drive where you get to stop by some really cute towns.
You’ve got the attractions, you’ve got the cliffside views of the water. So that entire drive itself was really beautiful.
Jess: Yes. So after admiring the most gorgeous Cliffs of Moher, which was. I think one of my highlights, it wasn’t the ultimate highlight, but it was up there of our Ireland trip. We stopped at a town, I believe you pronounce it, called Lahinch.
It was only like 20 minutes from there and had lunch. Yeah. And this was like a, I dunno, it was a casual place to eat lunch, but that was an area that tore buses go a lot and it’s right next to the beach. And so it was just a quick, easy stop, especially with their motor home. If you have a big motor home, it’s nice to find these places where there’s bus parking and big spaces to go.
Mm-hmm. So that made it really easy. And then from there we head off to the town of Adare.
Rod: Yeah. So we were driving from, Cliffs of Moher to Dingle. One of the stops along the way there is this town called Adair. And there’s, there’s a castle there. I think it’s Adare is well known because it has some really beautiful flower beds and gardens that you see there that have some of the old style cottages that you can see where like the roofs are covered in grass.
And let me tell you about the grass in general. This might be a little deviation, but the grass in Ireland. Still to this day, the most lush greenest grass I have ever seen in my life.
Jess: Rod kept saying like, it looks like they spray painted
Rod: it . Yeah. It’s like they spray painted it and when you’re driving, you’re driving across these rolling hills and all you see is this like almost neon colored grass.
It was incredible.
Jess: Yeah, but while in the town of Adare, you can check out the Desmond Castle. Rod mentioned there’s a castle there, and then there’s the Trinitarian Abbey. I think I said that right. Yeah. Um, and then from Adare, I mean, we thought it was worth the stop. If you were rushing on time and spend a lot of times at Cliffs of Moher, you could just drive through quickly and go straight from the Cliffs of Moher to the highlight for us, which was Dingle.
Rod: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so Dingle’s this little town on kind of the western edge of Ireland, I would say close to it. But what’s really famous about it, aside from the town itself, there’s a lot of beautifully colored homes there. You have this bay that you can overlook and it’s very striking.
You’ve got water, you’ve got little hills, but there’s also a world famous dolphin that lives there. And this dolphin is a legend. Honestly, everywhere that you go, you see like signs and posters. It’s a, the dolphin’s name is called Fungi. So Fungi, I guess, is just a dolphin that generally lives in that bay and is constantly spotted.
There’s tours where you go and, you know, you’re not really guaranteed a, a Fungi sighting, but it seems like that Dolphin is so friendly and always out there and kind of pops his head up with the boats and Jess is showing me a really sad face. So I’m guessing we’re about to hear some bad news about Fungi.
Jess: Oh, I loved fungi. I don’t know if this is true. I was just trying to Google it cuz we were there so long ago. This is that Fungi The dolphin has passed. I don’t know. By mid-October, Fungi was gone.
Rod: Of 2019. Of 2020. Oh man. Okay. Maybe there will still be some memorials of Fungi . I’m thinking there might still be boat rides of the Scenic Bay.
Jess: They kind of think this article says just this is totally off topic, that during Covid when all the tours stopped, that Fungi was sad and felt lonely, and there was a fisherman who tried to go out and keep him company often. But by mid-October, Fungi was gone. Aw. Oh
Rod: Yeah. There’s still lots and lots to do around Dingle.
I mean, rest in peace Fungi, or if Fungi is still alive and well out there. Hope you’re enjoying your life. But aside from that, I think what we ended up doing is we, after a couple of nights of sleeping in the RV, we actually had targeted this hotel. It was called the Dingle Skellig Hotel, and it was a place that was pretty much right up to the water.
It had a really scenic location. It had this like really wide field. That we could walk along. There’s some paths where you can go hiking. So we ended up staying there for a night and we stayed in the, in the hotel itself. We parked the motor home, but we used that as a little base because the next day we went and had an experience or really, it’s a drive and it’s called the Slea Head Drive.
Jess: And this drive, guys is still to date in my mind, the most beautiful drive I’ve ever done anywhere in the world. Yeah, I, I mean even though for Rod, like Iceland is beautiful and there’s a lot to see, like the drive itself was just, it was jaw dropping. It was so good that we actually did it twice.
Rod: We did it twice because the first day it was a little rainy and misty.
So the visibility wasn’t great. And we thought to ourselves, all right, we have built a little bit of flexibility in our schedule and that really, and we are gonna talk about this later, but I guess we can talk about it now. There’s another famous drive, close to which our next destination was gonna be, but it’s the Ring of Kerry drive and that is the more famous one that people usually hear about going, and there’s more organized tours taking you on that drive.
We asked a lot of the locals, hey, would you rather, you know, if you had an extra day, would you do Slea Head Drive or would you do a Ring of Kerry. And what they all told us was that Slea Head Drive had just as beautiful and scenic views as the Ring of Kerry, and it is a shorter drive in general. So that’s, that’s where we took the advice of the people that lived there.
And we ended up doing Slea Head Drive twice. We’ll link a, a link. We took a video, we took, uh, took the drone out while we were going on this road. But just to paint a picture for you, this is essentially a one and a half to maybe two hour drive around the peninsula, the Dingle Peninsula. And a lot of the drive itself is literally one lane.
So not even like one lane on each side. It was just one single lane for a car that could fit there. And uh, what you have to do is hope that during that mile to two mile long stretch of whatever portion of that road it was, that there wouldn’t be a car coming in the other direction or else you’d have to do this like really complicated, who’s gonna be the one that backs up all the way until there’s enough space for me to pass by? So what we ended up doing is we, we were advised to generally go clockwise in the direction of that road. And that’s where most of the tour buses were heading in that direction.
So that’s what we did. We didn’t encounter a lot of situations where we would have to back up. So that’s what we did. But along the way, there were some really fun, you know, aside from the views, there was a sheep farm where, there’s sign, do you wanna hold a baby sheep? And we’re like, yeah, we’d love to hold a baby sheep.
Jess: So we did that. I don’t know if that was a timing thing when we were there. I guess most baby sheeps, I thought were born in spring. I don’t know. But they, either way you could go to the sheep farms. They had those, there was cute little cafe we stopped at along the way. So there was, I mean, it was just a beautiful drive.
And I’m actually surprised we parked at one point and got out. Was that at Dunquin Harbor? Dunquin Harbor, yeah. And we walked along this grassy cliff and it was so beautiful. I think that was one of my favorite stops while on this Slea Head Drive. Yeah. But it was just, a beautiful day, I think. Yes, you could rush the drive and do it quickly.
But I would take your time. I think if you really take your time, it could take four, about four hours. Roughly,
Rod: yeah, if you’re taking stops. So it’s definitely like a half day type of thing. And there’s a bunch of places, little restaurants that you can stop at. I think there’s a museum there that you can spend some time at.
So you could easily spend more than four hours. It’s really two hours of driving. And then, Whatever stops that you wanna make along the way, and really the end of it will take you back into Dingle or you can use Dingle as a place to stop real quick and then move on to the next destination.
Jess: Yeah. And if you decide not to do the RV trip, I definitely recommend the Dingle Skellig Hotel. It was beautiful. They had like a kids club there. It was right next to the, the water. It had this beautiful green, grassy area. It was the perfect starting point to go on the Slea Head Drive. So that would be one of my top resorts to add to my list as far as in that dingle area.
Yeah, there’s an aquarium there to stay. Yeah, it was beautiful there. So from Dingle, we head off to Killarney. But on the way there, we actually just randomly passed this place called Inch Beach. Didn’t really know about it, but it was really cool. We ended up stopping there for a little bit. But had I known about it, I actually probably would’ve planned an overnight there because you can actually pull the RV right up into the sand, which made me nervous cause I kept thinking of this thing sinks down into the sand.
What are we gonna do? But there were RVs there. We weren’t the only ones. But I mean, it was spaced out enough that like you had your whole beach section, at least that day. We were there in September, so it wasn’t like peak summer. I’m sure if you went in summer it’d be different, but. it was beautiful. Like we, we ended up pulling out the picnic table and we had this little lunch at the beach and the kids were running around in the sand.
And it was really, really beautiful. I guess they just say to just beware of the tides. I think, you have to leave by like a certain time. You don’t wanna park close enough where the water comes in and floods your RV, but right there were RVs there. And it was beautiful. It was a great place to just spend some time.
It was one of those like fun things for us that we like randomly stumbled on. I remember like coming down a hill and you could see it.
Rod: You could see the beach and we’re like, wait, there’s little dots. Theres, I mean, there’s cars there. So then , yeah, we got, we’re driving down. I was like, do we stop? Should we stop there?
Should we go in? Are we gonna get stuck if we drive onto the sand? What should we do? ? It was such a fun little like, micro journey that took place on that drive.
Jess: Yeah. So we. So we went from Dingle to Inch Beach and then Inch Beach. We finally made our way to Killarney. Where we stayed at the Killarney Flesk Caravan and Camping Park.
And I actually, this was one of my, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was the nicest, I mean it was nice, but it wasn’t the most scenic camping park, but it had the best location cuz you could literally park, RV and walk straight to it was directly next to the, it was called the Victoria House Hotel, which had like a pub and really good food and it had live music and it was literally like right next door to that.
And then you could walk in. It’s different things. So it was probably the best proximity RV park out of some of the ones we went to. Cause it was so nice just to park it. And literally two steps later, we were at a restaurant in this beautiful hotel, and so that was one of the best. RV parks, I thought. And that Victoria House Hotel, that pub was really good.
I remember being not sad. I never, I don’t like saying sad cuz of like something we couldn’t do cuz of kids, but these Irish pubs had like really good live music and it’s like what you think of, of Ireland, like these. Cheery old men bringing their beers and this music, and it’s like one of those times where I’m like, oh, one late night in Ireland, one of these pubs would be incredible.
Rod: Right? Yeah. If you would think from six to eight when we’re having dinner there that like the music is already lively. Couldn’t imagine what it gets to closer to midnight, I would say. Yeah.
Jess: But, but we had the kids so we didn’t really stay out late.
Rod: Right. And we had a packed itinerary.
Jess: You know, we, yes, we couldn’t afford to have any tiredness the next day.
But Killarney was beautiful. This is where you would do the Ring of Kerry. And that is something I think we need to make a trip back for, just to do Dublin and the Ring of Kerry, but, The ring of Kerry is extremely famous for us. Unfortunately, that day there was a ton of rain. It was extremely foggy. We had just done two different times around Slea Head Drive, so I think the kids were kind of like, I don’t know if we wanna do a long driving day again.
And so we made the tough decision to say, you know, we’re not gonna do that.
Rod: Right? But we did, make a quick stop at the National Park there and there’s a place called the Muckross house that we stayed at or not stayed at, but we checked out. It’s a giant mansion and you get to walk around and see the different rooms.
Their gardens are spectacular. They have a really beautiful lake view there that you can just kind of sit there, read the newspaper, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. But I think that was a, a nice afternoon that we spent there just because the weather wasn’t perfect. So we, you know, if you’re not gonna do the Ring of Kerry, at least check out the National Park there.
Go check out Muckross House. Or you can keep on going to the next place. And for us from Killarney, there’s a couple of small stops that we made along the way. I think our next destination was Kilkenny. But there’s a lot of different little towns, in between that you could spend a couple of hours in as well.
So the first one of these is, Blarney. Blarney is, there’s a world famous Blarney Stone. It’s in a place called the Blarney Castle, and that’s the stone where, it’s rumored, that if you kiss a stone, then you are given the Gift of the Gab, which means you become very eloquent. We actually did not kiss the stone or even go into Blarney Castle because we were surprised by the 45 Euro fee to enter the castle , which as soon as we got there, we had the decision, right? It’s like, do we pay? Or do we just go to this little like cafe, I think it was called the Old Blarney Post Office Cafe.
It was literally outside of the Blarney Castle and we ended up just going there, getting a coffee. There was a playground there where the kids could play around that they really enjoyed. And we just got the people watch. We just sat there sipping on coffee, looking at and watching the people go into the Blarney Castle
Jess: This was another one of those decisions where we’re on a seven day trip and we’re trying to squeeze a lot in. We knew day, this was day six for us. We knew we had a ton of stops between where we started and Kilkenny, and it was like, do we wanna spend that much money when we wouldn’t be there like for the full amount of time that it’s meant for, right. In order to fully enjoy this experience. We were in a rush, to be honest. Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. So what we ended up doing is we kept driving, we stopped at another town called Cobh.
And Cobh is famous for a few different things. The first they have, there is a set of houses that they call the Deck of Cards. So if you’ve ever been to San Francisco or seen pictures of what’s called the Painted Ladies in San Francisco is these homes that are all different, like pastel type of colors.
Cobh also has their own kind of set of houses like that. They’re up on a hill. And they’re called the Deck of Cards. So it’s really cool to see, take some pictures around, but you also get this really beautiful view. Cobh is close to the coast and it’s up on a, like a hill area, so you can look down and you see this cathedral view that you have there.
So it’s really scenic. And the other piece that Cobh is known for is that. Cobb was the last port of the Titanic. So they have an entire experience that’s shaped around the Titanic experience there, and it’s definitely worth checking out, stopping in and taking a look there. We didn’t actually do the Titanic experience, but we heard all about it while we were there.
Jess: Yes. There’s so much just to do and all these little towns are just adorable and I feel like they each had their own little vibe, like each one’s unique in its own way. So just, just driving. Even if you didn’t have a big plan, but driving aimlessly through Ireland, I feel like you would find a lot of cool things.
From Cork, we went to Kilkenny, which was about two more hours. I mean, this was a day of a lot of driving, but a lot of stops to break it up. Mm-hmm. And we spent the night at an RV park there called the Tree Grove, which was just outside of the town. And to be honest, we didn’t do much day one. We were really tired and ready for, our day seven, which we spent exploring Kilkenny.
And in Kilkenny, one of the main highlights is yet again, a castle. There’s a lot of castles in Ireland, guys.
Rod: This castle though, was really interesting because it was, They had a guided tours there, but there were also just, you can walk around and you can read the different, little information tablets there, and every room that you’d go into.
It’s like, this was this royalty’s son’s room and this was the, you know, the king’s room and the queen’s room and the child number two’s room, and here was a school room and here was the nursery. So we, I think the kids really enjoyed it because it was all decorated with all the different furniture and things of that era.
So the kids got to really imagines like, wow, if this was my room, here’s what that would look like. And, you know, I’m gonna claim this room is my room in the castle . So the, the kids really enjoyed that, which, you know, I can’t, I can’t say that every time that we go into a big home or a castle, that is gonna be a fun, like for the whole family activity.
This one actually, the kids did enjoy.
Jess: Yeah. And Kilkenny to me was such a beautiful town cuz it’s, I don’t know. It looked like it was out of a storybook to me. There’s this river going through it. Mm-hmm. And you have the castle in the background and all this beautiful architecture and there’s green and I don’t know, it was probably one of the first towns I was like, man, I feel like this is what like the Disney story books are meant. Yeah. To be like set in. So just walking the town was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I absolutely loved it. There’s a lot of other stuff to do. There’s something called the Medieval Mile that is there. It, I don’t know you today, the Mile Trail.
It says, I’m reading this guys because I can’t remember back that far, but this one says the Mile Trail covers the area of High Street Parliament Street, Dean Street, St. Kern Street Rose Inn and the parade. I don’t know, it says it just takes you back in time. This is like a cool medieval Mile Trail that goes right through the city and it connects the Kilkenny Castle with St. Canice’s Cathedral. So I don’t know, Kilkenny’s like one of those days. You just walk around, you just, you get there. Yeah. And you walk and you admire the architecture. You admire this river. And I don’t know, I remember we stopped into several restaurant. And got some coffee.
Rod: Yeah, I think we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, where this was the place, it was that restaurant called Paris, Texas, where Santi had mac and cheese for the first time.
And generally the food in Ireland, I can say, I don’t think it’s what we were expecting necessarily. We were expecting a lot of like potatoes and corned beef, but there was that, but there was also a lot of different fish and chips. They had pasta, big variety with pastas. A lot of really good sandwich shops, that we stop by.
And the cool thing is every time that you’re there, there’s also draft Guinness on tap. They’ve got the live music and Kilkenny was one of those other places where we had dinner at one of the pubs there. They were starting to get set up with the music and we were like, oh, we started having another one of those decision points.
It’s like, how quickly do we think we can get a babysitter here to watch the kids for a few hours? It ended up being a little bit more complex than we were willing to like plan for, cuz we are at the motor home park is where we were parked. That’s probably where the kids would wanna be. But that was like a mile from Kilkenny, the area where we were at.
So it was one of those that’s like, man, we need to come back and either when the kids are older or to do another couple’s trip out here where we can go explore what the Irish nightlife would look like. I think that’s something that we’d want to come back for.
Jess: I think what’s funny too is I haven’t mentioned on this podcast, I’m surprised that I’m actually part Irish and I know a lot of people claim that they’re Irish.
Like everyone claims they’re Irish citizens. But , my grand, so my great-grandmother spoke Gaelic and my grandmother sadly passed away just this past month. Mm-hmm. They were Irish. I mean, I get my darker skin from my mom’s, but my, my dad’s side of the family was, I mean, my grandmother, we used to joke with sometimes like so pale she’s, almost translucent.
But they were very big with their Irish roots and so, it was so interesting to me because I grew up always hearing about Ireland. ,I actually, on our trip, really wanted to go to the home where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather met and the place that they got married. And that’s something I might try to do on our next trip.
The problem was, is I had just found out that where their home was, had actually been bulldozed down, so we actually made the trip out there. It would just be like a concrete slab at this point. Which, driving really far out of the route for that wasn’t necessarily ideal. But growing up we were this, you know, my dad’s this Irish Catholic family and I always thought like they just had this weird mix of food because, I don’t know, I just thought they liked a variety of food.
But then when I went to Ireland and we were going all these restaurants, I’m like, this totally makes sense. This is what we grew up on. Like it was a lot of roast beef, a lot of spaghetti, a lot of spaghetti, which I didn’t get where the spaghetti came from, but a lot of spaghetti, a lot of roast beef, a lot of cabbage, a lot of potatoes, a lot of pot roast type meals.
Yeah. But it was very much what my dad had us eat growing up, I guess. So yeah, it was interesting. But my last, that side of my family’s last name was Durkin. Mm-hmm. And there was just a lot of Irish Catholic influence. So it was, it was fun to hear all these stories of Ireland growing up and then to be able to go there and experience that.
Rod: Yeah. And Kilkenny really was our last night and what we ended up doing is waking up early the next day. We drove straight right back to Dublin, not even to the town. We went straight to the Spaceships rental place where we got the RV. Returned it and took a shuttle straight back to our flight.
So I think this is one of those trips where we did a lot in that week, but we also did not do a lot, particularly Dublin. There’s also the northern areas. There’s a place called the Giants Causeway, where there’s more kind of scenic drives and cliffside views. Belfast we didn’t go to, yeah, Northern Ireland.
So, I mean, it’s huge, huge place to explore. One week is definitely not enough and…
Jess: Definitely not enough. But it was amazing. I thought it was beautiful. I would definitely recommend if you go to see if there’s any cute, it’s funny because I feel like normally I tell people avoid festivals, but Ireland’s like a cool place that I would’ve loved to have gone to more local festivals, do things with the locals.
We got to go to the one with, Trans-Atlantic Leonards, but that was like a very small countryside festival was beautiful. But even if there was a festival in Kilkenny or in one of the cities, I think that would be really, really beautiful to see. I would avoid Dublin the one time I went to Dublin, and I wish I could give you guys more info.
Since we didn’t stay there as a family. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and I don’t recommend that because what I learned was it seemed, at least on my trip, this was a long time ago. I was probably 21, this was almost 20 years ago, but, the Irish avoid Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. It is like the international holiday where everyone from out of the country flies in to celebrate and say that they’re Irish.
And so prices were sky high. It was super packed, and I didn’t meet any locals. I don’t know. They were avoiding us.
Rod: Right? They’re like all these tourists.
Jess: So I feel, feel like my one time in Dublin I didn’t even get like a true Dublin experience. So, yep. Keep posted. I’m sure in the next year or two we’ll do an Ireland round two podcast and we will do the northern part of Ireland and we will definitely spend a day or two in Dublin so that we actually have feedback for you.
Rod: It’s funny timing cuz I think. Filming this episode in March and St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner too. So if you’re planning on an Ireland trip where you’ve already got tickets, where you’re gonna go for St. Patrick’s Day, beware and temper your expectations. According to what Jess talked about?
Jess: No, it’s not like it’s awful.
It’s just expensive. I mean, I, some of the restaurants we had gave you like paper menus that were obviously much higher priced and very different for that week, where it was like, had I come a week earlier or a week later? Everything would be substantially cheaper. So, but we hope that this podcast proved helpful.
I think if I went to Ireland again, maybe I actually, I think I would do the opposite. I think I would get a car and stay at some hotels so that we had more ease of getting into different cities. For Iceland, which was land of whatever, I would switch to an RV. So it’s kinda my, my, it’s not that I dislike the RV.
I do think it worked out. It was beautiful and it made, if you have really young kids, it made the long day drives much easier in the RV. That’s true. Yep. The kids were a lot more comfortable. They could quickly go to the bathroom. They had their like I said, their books, their board games, their coloring books that they could do while we drive.
So I do think if you have really young kids, the RV’s great. Mm-hmm. I think if you’re going with teens, like older kids who don’t need that, like constant entertainment, I would take a. only because I think you could really get into the hearts of these cities or get little Airbnbs or little hotels in the heart of each city and maximize your time in those places.
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. So with that, we hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions about Ireland or anything family travel related, feel free to reach out to us. Our email is [email protected]. You can find us on Instagram @thejetsettingfamily. And if you enjoyed this episode, we’d really appreciate it if you subscribed that way you can get new episodes every Tuesday downloaded straight to your phone.
So we’ll also put show notes on the link here that’ll give you more information, some of the videos of the scenic drives that we did, and then we have a blog post with our itinerary for Ireland as well. So, you know, thanks for listening and until next time, Happy Jetsetting!
