Explore the ultimate 7-day Ireland itinerary for families! Discover castles, cliffs, and countryside adventures perfect for traveling Ireland with kids.
We recently came back from a trip to Ireland with our three children, ages 8, 11, and 13.
We had a great time and we visited both North Ireland and Ireland, although we didn’t have enough time to visit the southern part of the country.
This was a 7-day trip and I can share my itinerary with you to see if it might help you book something similar.
Enjoy!
Flights
We flew out of Dulles Airport (IAD) with a plane departure of 5:20pm and arrived in Dublin the following day at 5:10am. We slept on the flight, then planned a full day with an early bedtime so we could easily adjust to the time change as easily as possible. Duration: 6 hr 50 min
The flight home departed at 4pm in Dublin and arrived the ‘same day’ at Dulles at 6:55pm. We did NOT sleep on this flight so that we could readjust to Eastern Standard Time by going to bed once we returned home from the airport. Duration: 7 hr 55 min
Notes on UK/Ireland
- Rental car companies will want to know if you’ll be driving in both countries.
- UK uses pounds and Ireland uses Euros. Be cognizant of this for tolls and exchanging money if you plan to pay cash for anything.
- You need to pay a small fee and register to visit the UK… nobody ever checked, but we went through the process regardless and were approved.
- If driving, the speed limit for both countries is a circular sign with a red circle around a number. The Irish signs say KPH under the number. The UK signs don’t say MPH or KPH… but it’s MPH. You should be able to switch your rental car into MPH or KPH depending on the location… unfortunately, ours didn’t do that automatically.
- If driving, they drive on the left side of the road and use roundabouts heavily. I LOVE driving on the left side (might be the novelty of it). It’s a lot easier to practice left side driving on the country roads vs. in Dublin… mostly because all back roads are essentially one lane and everyone prays it works out.
- They have EXTREMELY high speed limits on back roads… I get the sense that this is sort of a max speed limit vs. the actual expectation that you’ll go that speed so don’t stress out if you’re slow poking. Most people seemed to go much slower than the speed limit sign indicated… many back roads were 80 KPH and were essentially one lane (but two way). You’d go a ways, see another car, one of you would pull over to let the other go past, and then you’d carry on…. no big deal. I didn’t see a lot of road rage or frustration on the part of other drivers… people just went about their business, pulling over or passing as they desired.
Region Focus #1: Dublin
Day 1
Our flight was delayed due to weather in D.C. so we arrived around at 7 or 8 am in Dublin and got breakfast at a restaurant in the airport outside of the terminals. It was excellent and easy.
- 9am: Picked up rental car.
- 10am: Visited the Epic Museum in Dublin (2-3 hrs)
- 12:30pm: Lunch in the same building as the Epic Museum.
- 1pm: Drove to Bru Na Boinne (45 min)
- 2pm: Arrival at Bru Na Boinne/New Grange.
Note: Buy tour tickets online ahead of time. We thought we’d be able to self tour and we had to wait around until the last available tour at 4pm in order to get tickets. - 5pm: Drove to our rental in Crossmaglen, around 40 minutes away. We decided to run to the local grocery store and pick up supplies for an easy dinner, then we went to bed early.
*note that the trip was actually a day longer due to leaving the day before to get to Dublin early in the morning.
Day 2:
We left this day fairly open as we weren’t sure how we’d feel. We self toured around the Ring of Gullion, and also drove around to see some castle ruins. This was pretty casual and low key, then we went to a local restaurant for dinner.
The Ring of Gullion had a lot of promise for a long hike, but they were partially closed for an event when we went… which was good because I didn’t have the energy to hike the hike that my husband had planned. Unfortunately, the driving trail was also closed for that day.
One of the castle ruins that we went to was Moyry which was near to the Ring of Gullion.
None of the nearby ruins had great parking- expect to find a curb or area to pullover, then hike from there. Upside is that we only saw a couple of other people at each site.
Day 3: We checked out of our rental and headed to our next region…
Region Focus #2: North Ireland
Day 3, Continued
- 9am Rental Checkout and drive to Belfast, 1 hour
- 10am-1pm: Titanic Museum in Belfast
- 12/1pm: We had lunch at the Titanic Museum before walking over to the other section of the exhibit (a boat that helped ferry passengers to the Titanic).
- Original Plan: Black Taxi Tour of Belfast… we opted not to do this because we were short on time and the traffic leaving Belfast was rough. due to road closures.
- 3pm: Drove to rental in Portrush, UK.
- 4pm: Rental check-in.
- 6pm: Dinner
Portrush was extremely busy as it’s a beautiful beach town and we visited on the weekend. I was struggling. Parking was difficult and restaurants were booked. Plan ahead and schedule for restaurants. I had to circle a lot to find parking and it was a bit of a pain. Usually parking was easier between 8pm and late morning.
Day 4
- 8am: Breakfast
- 9am-11am: Giants Causeway (17 min from Portrush)
- 11am-12pm: Lunch
- 12pm-2pm: Carrick-a-Rede National Trust (17 min from Giant’s Causeway)
- 2:30pm-4pm: Kinbane Castle (8 min from Carrick-a-Rede)
- Returned to rental, relaxed for a bit, and ate a late-ish dinner.
This day had a LOT of hiking and climbing. They’re all very intensive in terms of walking. Carrick-a-Rede has a big rope bridge that you cross. Kinbane was rough by the time we finished the other two… lots of hiking down, then back up again. I thought they’d need to Med-Evac me out.
All of the areas are pretty crowded, but were fairly comfortable and had parking. You can reserve tickets ahead for Carrick-a-Rede and Giant’s Causeway.
Region Focus #3: Ashford Castle Area
Day 5:
- 7am: Checked out of rental to drive to Ashford Castle for a 2pm hawk walk (schedule this in advance as they sell out). This was about a 4 hour drive, but you MUST BE ON TIME for the activity. We opted to get there early and have time for lunch.
- 12:45/1pm: Lunch at the cafe at Ashford Castle (near to parking)
- 2pm: Hawk Walk, 90 min
- 4pm: Drive to rental and checked in.
- 5pm: Ate dinner locally.
- Check-in at VRBO in Clonbur
We only stayed on night in this rental.
Day 6:
- 8am: Ate breakfast at the rental and checked out.
- 9am: Drove to the Aran Island and Rosaveel Harbor (1 hr)
- 10:30am: Took the Aran Island Ferry to Innis Mor (45 min ferry ride)
- 11:30am-3pm: Thomas Faherty Carriage Tour of the Island (there’s a 1.5 hr break for lunch during this tour)
- 3-3:45pm: Shopping in the town.
- 4pm: Ferry back to the harbor (45 min)
Note that I purchased the ferry ride and carriage tour ahead. This island was VERY touristy though so it felt like there were tours everywhere that people were trying to get us to go on.
Region Focus #4: Ennis
Day 6, Continued
- 5pm: Drove to our rental in Ennis. (2+ hrs due to a closed road, but normally 1.5 hrs)
- 7pm: Dinner in Ennis
Day 7
- A.M. 1.5 hr Castlefergus Horseback Riding Tour
- Afternoon: Bunratty Castle & Folk Park
- PM Meal: Bunratty Medieval Banquet (this is a MUST- it was so much fun!)
Day 8
- Return rental car.
- Depart Dublin airport.
Our plane was departing at 4pm so we needed to drop our rental car off around 1:30pm.
We originally planned to do the Dublin Zoo, or potentially do the Irish Wolfhound tour, but decided to stay at the Ennis rental longer in the morning to relax vs. pushing ourselves too hard before a long flight.
I think planning to arrive more than 2 hrs before your flight departs would be good because the immigration process all happened on the Dublin side… this was nice for when we landed, but I thought we were going to miss our flight (we made it to the terminal gate with 15 min to spare). I like to be a bit earlier than that.
Ireland is Fairly Allergy Friendly
I know this isn’t something that matters to everyone, but Ireland was really allergy friendly. Everything at every restaurant was labeled and they’re supposed to be accurate. I caught one situation where the restaurant messed up on their dessert menu, but regardless, I felt much better than I normally do about eating out.
It was a huge relief to not need to draw attention to myself or my allergies by needing to ask for allergy menus or have the waiters check with the kitchen etc. The menus were just automatically labeled. It was… so fantastic.
This was NOT true of North Ireland which is technically part of the UK.
I was pleasantly surprised with how well the trip went. We have the neurodivergence and trips can be touch and go because there’s often someone melting down because they’re hot, tired, hungry, need alone time, over stimulated, etc. But this trip was JUST enough and not too much.
Obviously, we cut out some activities to avoid issues. Being in a rental works much better for our family because it allows kids to have a bit more space to spread out and get quiet time when needed.
Part of me still wishes we had just stayed in one rental and enjoyed the countryside each day, but the mix of needing quiet time and needing an activity or we get bored is problematic… the area we stayed in Crossmaglen was lovely because there was a cute pub across the street that we could walk to… but there weren’t a lot of activities that were particularly close by. I was trying to avoid hours and hours in a car each day.
That’s all! I hope this was helpful. I think I’d spend more time in the Ennis area next time and also visit the southern part of Ireland, but we simply couldn’t do it all in the week we had. I’d quite frankly rather just move to Ireland or Scotland and live there, but apparently moving an entire farmyard of animals overseas is cost prohibitive. Maybe in my next life.
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