Ireland '23 - Trip Intro   

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In February '23, I learned that two of my three sisters, Doris & Mary (plus Roger) were booking for 10+ nights in Ireland in mid-October, part of a 120-person (four) bus tour, arranged around a performing Irish music band called The Elders, who like my sisters live in Colorado Springs (as do most of the people on the tour).   

Once the tour ends, in Dublin, they wanted to explore the City for four days and then head north to the Hill of Tara and  Neolithic ruins at Newgrange & Nowth, and, to stay two nights near the Irish Sea, which sounded good to me.

My wife said she did not wish to travel in fall '23 & gave me her blessing to go. Soon enough, all of us had overnights & flights booked, and I added 8 days of destinations to see, prior to meeting them in Dublin. 

My itinerary: 3 nights in Dublin, 2 nights in Killarney, 3 nights on the Ring of Kerry drive (Knights Town, Portmagee, and Kenmare), 1 more night in Killarney, then 4 more in Dublin, 2 nights at Carlingford (north coast), and finally 2 nights in Dublin = 18 nights in Ireland, plus 1 more in Chicago on the flights home.      

Here is the trip index - Ireland 23 trip index

First day of the trip - Dublin arrival

2019 perspective - I first visited Dublin in October 2019 (with my wife + friends Rich & Linda), but we only had a 4 hour visit and did not get much from the HOHO bus perspective.  But we also had a short walk along River Liffey & had dinner at the Arlington Hotel, looking out at the O'Connell bridge. Our Scotland/England trip began the next morning, at the Glasgow Airport. Photo pages can be found on the main Index.

In the Epilogue, I wrote that coming back to get familiar with Dublin, on foot, was a future necessity. So, once the Oct. '23 plan was set, I was pleased to see I'd be staying in Dublin for 9 nights, on 3 separate occasions. And all of us agreed ahead of time to maximize walking opportunities. Turns out that is a really good idea, because Dublin is a surprisingly small city.