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The Cliffs of Moher falling into the Atlantic under a pale sky, with green clifftop grass in the foreground
The Cliffs of Moher on the Clare coast. O'Brien's Tower, on the headland behind, was put up in 1835 purely as a platform to look at them from.
Country brief · 53.3498°N 6.2603°W

Ireland

The road signs stop being bilingual somewhere west of Tralee. Most itineraries never get that far.

How long
A weekten days buys a second coast
Getting around
A caron the left, and no railway down the west
When
May, June and Septemberlight until eleven at night in June
Language
EnglishGaeltacht road signs are in Irish only
Money
The eurosterling in the north, across an unmarked border
Airports
Dublin DUBShannon SNN and Cork ORK for the west
How long

How many days do you need in Ireland?

A week covers Dublin and one western region comfortably. The full Wild Atlantic Way is 2,500 kilometres and wants a fortnight. Ireland is in the EU but not in the Schengen area, so a Schengen visa does not admit its holder; US, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and EU passports need no visa for 90 days.

Getting around

Do you need a car in Ireland?

For anything outside Dublin, yes. Driving is on the left, and there is no railway along the west coast at all: the rail network radiates from Dublin rather than running around the edge. Note that most North American credit cards, Visa included, exclude the Republic of Ireland from their rental car cover, so the hire desk's own damage waiver is usually the only option.

When

When is the best time to visit Ireland?

May, June and September. June holds light past eleven in the evening, and the coaches have not peaked. July and August are the busy weeks, when the Skellig Michael and Newgrange slots go first. It rains in every month, so the question is never whether but for how long at a time.

Language

What language is spoken in Ireland?

English is what is spoken everywhere. Irish is the first official language, and in the Gaeltacht, which covers most of west Kerry, Connemara and west Donegal, the road signs are in Irish only: Dingle is signed An Daingean and Dunquin is Dun Chaoin. Navigate on the Irish name in those areas.

Money

What money does Ireland use?

The euro. Cards and contactless work everywhere, including rural pubs and buses. Northern Ireland uses the pound sterling and the border is unmarked, so a day trip north from Donegal or Dundalk changes currency with no sign to mark it.

Airports

Where do you fly into Ireland?

Dublin, which took 36.4 million of the 43.5 million passengers who passed through Irish airports in 2025 and has US preclearance. For the west, Shannon (2.2 million, also with preclearance), Cork (3.5 million), Ireland West Knock (0.9 million) and Kerry (0.4 million) all cut a day of driving. Flying into Shannon and out of Dublin avoids backtracking.

Why you should visit

Ninety seconds on the country

Ireland is small enough to cross in a day and slow enough that nobody does. The country is about 480 kilometres end to end, and the whole argument for going is on the western edge, where the land stops in cliffs and the roads narrow to one car.

It is also the most continuously documented corner of western Europe. The passage tombs on the Boyne were built six hundred years before the pyramids, and monks were copying manuscripts here while the rest of the continent had stopped.

West of Dingle and north of Sligo the villages get smaller and the coast runs on for another four hundred kilometres with almost nobody on it. A second week buys that stretch, and nothing else in the country needs the time as badly.

Most visitors land at Dublin, drive to one cliff and one ring, and fly home, which compresses a fortnight of country into three days of driving. Take one coast properly rather than three badly, and go in May, June or September, when the light runs to eleven at night and the car parks still have space.

Five Ways to Travel It

Pick how you want to travel. The towns, the things to do and the map all change with it.

A steep stone-roofed church and a tall round tower standing in the wooded valley at Glendalough under grey cloud, behind a low drystone enclosure wall
Saint Kevin's Kitchen and the round tower at Glendalough. The tower is about thirty metres and its door sits well above head height, which is what a monastery did about raiders.

Culture

The Best Places to Visit for Cultural Travel in Ireland

This is the one category with something in all thirty-three towns, and the range is the point: neolithic tombs, monastic round towers, Norman keeps, Georgian squares. A great deal of it is unstaffed, unfenced and free.

Almost none of the best of it is behind glass. The Book of Kells sits in a working college library, the Rock of Cashel was a royal seat centuries before it was a church, and the National Museum's gold room is free and takes half an hour.

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