Cross the Shannon Estuary by ferry between Tarbert and Killimer, taking in the broad waters where Ireland’s longest river meets the Atlantic. The open-water crossing offers a different perspective on the western coastline; bottlenose dolphins are sometimes spotted here, though sightings cannot be guaranteed.

The estuary has long connected communities and carries stories of trade, smuggling and nineteenth-century emigration. This short sailing is more than a transport link: it is a chance to experience the scale and maritime history of the Shannon.

Follow the Slea Head route around the Dingle Peninsula for views of windswept cliffs, beaches and the offshore Blasket Islands. Along this Atlantic coast, ancient stone remains offer glimpses of communities that made their homes in an exposed landscape.

Ring forts, beehive huts and Ogham stones speak to the peninsula’s early Gaelic heritage. The Blaskets carry a more recent story: their Irish-speaking community left the islands for the mainland in 1953.

Join your Travel Director for a welcome dinner in Dublin and meet the travellers sharing your journey. Conversation over a meal offers a relaxed introduction to the group and to Irish hospitality.

It is a chance to exchange first impressions of the capital and hear what fellow travellers hope to discover. The evening centres on good food and easy conversation, rather than a formal sightseeing programme.

• 5 Dinner (D)
• 11 Breakfast (B)

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

• Kildare: Horse racing is key part of Irish culture; and you’ll gain a rare insight into it on your visit to the Irish National Stud. Set in Kildare at the breeding ground of champions and the birthplace of legends, explore the foaling unit, museum and the stallions that continue to make racing history. As the only stud farm in Ireland open to the public, learn the insights of horse-racing at a site whose former visitors include queens and presidents. 
• Kilkenny: Visit Kilkenny Castle to learn the history of this magnificent castle and that of the powerful Ormonde family that came to call it home for so many centuries. Amble through the Picture Gallery, library, drawing room, nursery and bedrooms decorated in 1830s splendor as well as the rolling parkland formal terraced rose garden, woodlands and man-made lake.
• Blarney: It is said that those who kiss the Blarney Stone, the famous stone of eloquence, are bestowed with the power to persuade, flatter and coax. Take your turn at giving it a peck knowing that the stone was sourced from 330-million-year-old limestone.
• Derry/Londonderry: There’s no better way to experience sightseeing than with one of Northern Ireland’s best storytellers, Ronan, as he takes you on a tour inside the city walls. See the Gothic Guildhall and the Georgian houses of Shipquay Street.

Insight Vacations

• Business class coach with extended leg room
• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays

Discover Dublin with a Local Expert on a guided city orientation through its elegant squares and along the River Liffey. See the Custom House, Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral, with views of the Guinness Storehouse also featured.

These landmarks trace a city shaped by Georgian ambition, religious heritage and centuries of trade. Expert commentary gives context to the streets and buildings, helping you recognise the layers of history within Ireland’s capital.

Visit Trinity College Dublin to discover its historic campus and see the Book of Kells experience. The exhibition brings you close to one of Ireland’s most celebrated treasures: an illuminated manuscript of the four Christian Gospels created around the ninth century.

Look for the intricate interlacing, vivid ornament and imaginative figures that make its pages distinctive. Founded in 1592, Trinity provides a fitting setting for an encounter with Ireland’s long traditions of scholarship and manuscript-making.

Explore the Irish National Stud in County Kildare, a working thoroughbred breeding centre where you can learn about Ireland’s racing heritage. Discover the foaling unit, museum and stallions associated with a sport deeply woven into the country’s culture.

Walk through the adjoining Japanese Gardens, whose carefully composed paths represent stages in life’s journey. The pairing of an active stud farm and a century-old landscaped garden makes this a distinctive look at two sides of Kildare.

Step inside Kilkenny Castle to explore the long history of the powerful Butler family, Earls and Dukes of Ormonde. See restored rooms, including the Picture Gallery and domestic spaces furnished to evoke the castle’s nineteenth-century life.

Established after the Norman conquest, the castle has changed considerably since its medieval beginnings. Its interiors and landscaped grounds show how a defensive stronghold became a grand family residence at the heart of Kilkenny.

Explore Ireland’s second city with your Travel Director on a Cork orientation tour. See the Grand Parade, South Mall, City Hall and Opera House while getting a sense of the compact centre and its lively waterfront.

Hear how Cork developed from a settlement associated with St Finbarr through Viking and Norman eras into a prosperous merchant city. Its broad streets and civic buildings offer visible clues to that layered past and its enduring independent spirit.

Visit the ruins and gardens of Blarney Castle, one of County Cork’s best-known historic sites. Those who wish can climb to the ramparts and kiss the Blarney Stone, following the tradition that credits it with the gift of eloquence.

The stone sits high in the medieval castle’s battlements, making the ritual as memorable for its setting as for its folklore. The surrounding gardens offer another way to experience the estate and its centuries-old atmosphere.

Taste farm-to-table Irish cooking at the 19th Green Guesthouse in Killarney, hosted by John and Freda. Enjoy a home-cooked dinner while hearing about familiar Irish recipes and the ingredients that give them their local character.

Your hosts source food from nearby farms and the Irish coast, with a focus on ingredients produced within a five-mile radius. Their approach makes the meal a personal introduction to responsible local food traditions, not simply a restaurant dinner.

Get to know Killarney on a gentle orientation led by your Travel Director. Take in the town’s streets, shopfronts and church spires, framed by the mountains that draw visitors to this corner of County Kerry.

Stories of the town provide context for its place beside Killarney National Park and the celebrated lakes. This introduction helps you appreciate Killarney as a lived-in Irish town as well as a gateway to some of the island’s best-known scenery.

Choose a horse-drawn jaunting car ride in Killarney with a local jarvey at the reins. This traditional way of travelling offers an unhurried perspective on the town and its scenic surroundings.

Jarveys are part of Killarney’s visitor heritage, known for sharing local stories as they drive. The sound of hooves and open-air views give this included choice a character quite different from a conventional sightseeing tour; it is offered as an alternative to the guided national park hike.

Choose a gentle guided hike in Killarney National Park to explore its lakeshore, woods and mountain views on foot. The route passes the grounds of Ross Castle, a fifteenth-century stronghold beside Lough Leane.

A local guide adds insight into the protected landscape and its historic estates, including the Muckross area. This included choice involves no mountain climb, but walkers should be fit and bring suitable footwear, sunscreen and rain gear; it is an alternative to the jaunting car ride.

Explore the Ring of Kerry, a celebrated circuit of coastal and mountain scenery around the Iveragh Peninsula. Travel past lakes, sheep-grazed fields, villages such as Sneem and stretches of rugged Atlantic shoreline.

The route crosses peatland towards Moll’s Gap and reaches Ladies View, a viewpoint overlooking Killarney’s lakes. Its shifting combination of sea, valleys and uplands reveals why this landscape has become one of Ireland’s defining scenic journeys.

Visit the Cliffs of Moher and their Visitor Centre to look out across the Atlantic from one of the Wild Atlantic Way’s most recognisable landscapes. Follow the designated viewing areas for perspectives on cliffs rising to around 214 metres above the sea.

Your Travel Director shares insight into the cliffs’ geology, history and wildlife, while the exhibition adds context to what you see outside. Weather and light continually change the appearance of the rock face and open water.

Travel through the Burren, County Clare’s striking limestone landscape, on a scenic drive towards Galway Bay. Look out for broad expanses of pale rock, broken by deep fissures and pockets of vegetation.

Its exposed terrain feels markedly different from Ireland’s familiar green fields. The Burren’s distinctive geology has shaped both its habitats and its long human history, making the journey a chance to see another side of the western countryside.

Explore Galway’s historic heart on an orientation taking in the Lynch Memorial Window, St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Spanish Arch and Eyre Square. These landmarks reveal the character of a city long connected to Atlantic trade.

St Nicholas’ is Ireland’s largest medieval parish church in continuous use, while the Spanish Arch recalls Galway’s old waterfront defences. Local stories bring the streets to life and offer a sense of the people and traditions behind the city’s lively atmosphere.

Walk with local storyteller Ronan inside Derry/Londonderry’s historic city walls, where surviving cannons recall the city’s defensive past. Continue along Shipquay Street to see Georgian houses and the Gothic Guildhall.

Built in the early seventeenth century, the walls are among the city’s defining landmarks. Ronan’s stories connect their architecture to the lives and events that shaped Derry/Londonderry, giving this guided walk a distinctly local voice.

Walk among the interlocking basalt columns of Giant’s Causeway on Northern Ireland’s Antrim coast. Explore this UNESCO World Heritage Site at your own pace, observing the geometric forms where dark volcanic rock meets the sea.

The columns formed through volcanic activity around 60 million years ago, though local legend offers a more playful explanation involving the giant Finn McCool. Science and storytelling give this remarkable shoreline two equally memorable ways to be understood.

Take in the cliffs and coastal views of the Antrim Coast Road as it follows Northern Ireland’s shoreline. The changing outlook brings together sheltered bays, open sea and the steep landforms that make this route especially scenic.

Near Carrickfergus, see the imposing Carrickfergus Castle from the road. Founded in the Norman period, its waterside position hints at the importance of controlling passage along Belfast Lough; this is a view of the castle, not an interior visit.

Walk through Ballygally with your Travel Director, following the curve of its bay beside a strip of pale sand. Take in the cottages, shoreline and views opening towards the Antrim Coast.

This gentle orientation offers a closer look at a small coastal community often passed through on the way to better-known landmarks. Sea air and the meeting of cliffs and beach give Ballygally its quiet, distinctly northern coastal character.

Gather for a celebration dinner in Ballygally, sharing regional cuisine and conversation with your fellow travellers. The meal is a hosted occasion rather than a routine hotel dinner, with time to reflect on the places and people encountered across Ireland.

Irish hospitality often centres on craic: the warmth created by stories, laughter, food and good company. This convivial evening gives that tradition a place at the table. Sláinte!

Discover Belfast on a locally led panoramic city tour that pairs major landmarks with a resident’s perspective. See City Hall, the Big Fish, Titanic Quarter and the Samson and Goliath cranes, alongside murals expressing political views in different neighbourhoods.

Hear from Belfast local Hilda about the city’s history and the changes she has witnessed. Industrial landmarks and street art together reveal a capital shaped by shipbuilding, conflict and continuing renewal.

Explore the Aran Islands on an optional experience from the Galway area. These Atlantic islands are known for rugged cliffs and far-reaching coastal views that capture the exposed character of the Wild Atlantic Way.

Island life has preserved strong connections to Irish language and tradition, set against a landscape shaped by sea and stone. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the particular island visited and activities offered will depend on the excursion available.