Duration: 10-12 Days | Start/Finish: Dublin City | Group Size: Max 20 | Average Daily Drive Time: Hours
There’s a version of Ireland that most visitors never quite reach – the far north coast at dawn, a dirt track in Donegal that doesn’t appear in any guidebook, a corner of West Cork where the music starts before the sun goes down. This is that version.
Our 10 day tour of Ireland is one of the most complete small group tours of Ireland available – taking you from the top of the island to the Wild Atlantic coast and into Kerry, covering the full sweep of what makes this country genuinely extraordinary.
Or go further. Our 12 day tour of Ireland adds West Cork, Kinsale, Cobh, and a farewell toast at Midleton Distillery, completing the Wild Atlantic Way all the way to the southernmost point of the Irish coast. Whichever length you choose, these are not brief introductions to Ireland – they are proper, full-immersion journeys through it.
Both tours start with a Dublin City centre meeting point and end in Killarney (10 days) or Cork City (12 days). You’ll travel in a modern midi-coach with recliner seats, USB chargers, and air-con – led by a local Galway-based driver-guide who has spent years getting to know every road, story, and shortcut on this route. We’ve been running guided tours of Ireland since 1988, and everything we’ve learned in that time goes into these itineraries.
Groups are small – a maximum of 20 guests – so you’re never just a face in a crowd. If you’re researching 10 day Ireland vacation packages and wondering what separates one from the rest, the honest answer is usually this: group size, pacing, and the quality of the guide. We do all three properly.
Still deciding which tour is right for you? Browse our full range of Multi-Day Tours of Ireland.
Most tours of Ireland focus on the south and west – Kerry, Killarney, the Cliffs of Moher. This tour goes north first, and that changes everything. Arriving on the island from Belfast, tracking the Causeway Coast, crossing into the wildness of Donegal and then slowly south – you get a sense of how large and varied Ireland actually is. By the time you reach Galway on Day 6, you’ve already lived inside the country rather than just looking at it.
What sets these multi-day Ireland tours apart is the structure. Three Local Days – in Belfast, Galway, and Killarney – give you full free days in the places that reward them most. Not every stop is a tick on a list. Some of them are proper time.
Two nights in Belfast means you’re not rushing the city. Two nights in Galway means a night out and a slow morning. Two nights in Killarney on the 12-day means space to breathe before the final push south.
The 10-day option covers approximately 80% of the Wild Atlantic Way – the full northern sweep and the entire western coast from Donegal to Kerry. The 12-day covers approximately 95% of it, adding the southern tail through West Cork and finishing at Kinsale. For anyone who’s been planning Ireland multi day tours and wondering which option does the WAW justice, both do – the 12-day simply completes it.
And across both options: everything is included. No surprise add-ons on group activities, no large coaches. Just a guide who genuinely knows this route and the kind of multi day tours in Ireland that guests come back and recommend for years.
Overnights (10 Day): 2 nights Belfast · 2 nights Donegal · 1 night Westport · 2 nights Galway City · 1 night West Clare · 1 night Killarney
Overnights (12 Day): As above, plus 1 additional night Killarney · 1 night Cork City
Key Destinations: Belfast · Causeway Coast · Derry · Donegal · Slieve League · Sligo · Mullaghmore · Downpatrick Head · Westport · Connemara · Galway City · Cliffs of Moher · Aran Islands · Dingle Peninsula · Killarney · West Cork & Kinsale (12 Day) · Cobh & Midleton (12 Day)
You’ll meet your driver-guide at a Dublin City centre meeting point and board your tour coach – a maximum of 20 guests – before heading north to Belfast.
The morning drive is your first proper look at the Irish countryside, and your guide will begin weaving in the history and context that make this island so hard to leave. Once in Belfast, bags down, city yours.
Your guide will point you towards the Cathedral Quarter, recommend where to eat, and make sure you know enough to find your own way. Belfast rewards the curious guest – and there’s no better way to arrive than with an afternoon to just walk it.
Overnight: Belfast City Centre
Belfast is a city that gives you more the longer you spend in it – and today the whole day is yours.
Popular choices: a Black Cab Tour of the murals and Troubles history, which puts the story of a divided city into human terms no guidebook quite manages; the Titanic Museum, built on the very slipway where the ship was constructed (one of the best visitor experiences in Ireland); the Game of Thrones Studio Tour; a round of golf at Rory McIlroy’s home club; or a hike along the Gobbins cliff path on the Antrim coast.
Your guide stays on hand throughout – they’ve helped plenty of guests navigate this city and know what’s worth the time.
Overnight: Belfast City Centre
A day that takes you from one of the world’s most dramatic coastlines into one of Ireland’s most remote corners.
The morning brings the Causeway Coast. Cross the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, suspended 30 metres above the Atlantic, then walk among the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway, where geology and Irish mythology have been arguing about the same story for thousands of years. After lunch, a guided walking tour of Derry – Ireland’s only fully intact walled city – where every street carries its share of history.
Late afternoon, the coach crosses the border into County Donegal and onto the northernmost stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way. The air changes. The scale changes. Tonight’s hotel sits right on the water, and tomorrow the north-west coast opens up properly.
Both the 10-day and 12-day tours join the Wild Atlantic Way here. The 10-day covers approximately 80% of this extraordinary coastal route; the 12-day takes you all the way to its southern tip at Kinsale.
Overnight: Donegal
No rigid plan. Just the north-west coast, Donegal’s wild roads, and the highest sea cliffs in mainland Ireland.
Donegal is the kind of place that makes you question whether you’ve ever really seen coastline before. Today’s route stays deliberately loose – this is road-tripping at its best. Empty beaches, small villages where the welcome is warm and unhurried, coffee stops in pubs that haven’t changed in decades.
The anchor of the day is Slieve League – the highest sea cliffs in mainland Ireland, rising over 600 metres above the Atlantic. They dwarf the Cliffs of Moher in height and see a fraction of the visitors. Standing at the edge, looking west into open ocean, is one of those Ireland moments that takes a few seconds to land before it hits properly.
Overnight: Donegal Town
From one of the world’s great surf breaks to one of Ireland’s most dramatic sea stacks.
Mullaghmore is a charming coastal village with a quiet secret – the wave that breaks off its headland in heavy Atlantic swells is one of the largest rideable waves on the planet. You get the view, which is worth it on its own.
Then Downpatrick Head. The walk out to the headland is easy, but what waits at the end – a sea stack detached from the mainland by centuries of Atlantic erosion, standing alone in the churning water below – is genuinely unforgettable. It’s the kind of landscape that only makes sense in person.
The evening arrives in Westport – one of the most handsome towns on the west coast – with the whole night to explore its restaurants and music pubs.
Overnight: Westport
A morning in the Irish-speaking heartland, an afternoon in Ireland’s most vibrant city.
The road to Galway winds through Connemara – a landscape of bogs, mountains, and the Atlantic at every turn, where Irish is still the first language. Stop to meet a local farmer and watch his sheepdogs work – one of those small, unscripted moments guests remember long after the landmarks have blurred.
Kylemore Abbey’s Gothic towers rising above their lake are worth every photo, and the walled gardens earn a slow wander. A tasting of Poitín rounds out the morning before the coach rolls into Galway.
The afternoon: a Galway City guided walking tour through Galway’s medieval streets and famous river, then the city is yours. The restaurants, the music, the craft shops on Shop Street, or a pint at the right bar. Galway has a reputation for a reason.
Overnight: Galway City Centre
You’re over halfway through your trip, and there’s no better place for a full Local Day than Galway.
This is your second free day of the tour, and Galway is well-chosen for it. The boutique shops on Quay Street, a long lunch by the river, an eBike tour through the city and Salthill, a food tour, a coastal walk, a session in a pub that started early. Galway does all of these well. Your guide stays on hand – they know what’s worth seeing, what’s overrated, and which pubs are actually good.
Overnight: Galway City Centre
The most dramatic morning of the tour – from the sea, looking up.
Start in Kinvara, a small harbour village on Galway Bay, with a morning coffee before the boats leave. Then out onto the water for a Cliffs of Moher cruise from Galway – the only way to properly understand the scale of these cliffs is to look up at them from the Atlantic. From the top they’re impressive; from the water, 214 metres of sheer rock rising straight out of the sea, they’re extraordinary.
The afternoon belongs to Inis Óirr – the smallest of the Aran Islands, and one of the most quietly beautiful places in Ireland. Explore by bike, by horse and cart, or on foot through ancient stone forts, a shipwrecked trawler in the shallows, and wildflowers growing through limestone.
Back on the mainland: up to the top of the Cliffs visitor centre, a soft-serve in Lahinch, and a sunset check-in at a coastal hotel overlooking the beach at Spanish Point.
Overnight: West Clare
A ferry crossing, one of Ireland’s finest coastal drives, and an evening of traditional music.
The morning starts on the water – a drive-on, drive-off ferry crossing of the Shannon Estuary, cutting through the morning mist and putting you in Kerry without the inland detour. The Slea Head Drive on the Dingle Peninsula is one of Ireland’s finest coastal roads: sea, mountains, and prehistoric ruins in the same glance. Dingle Town earns its stop – small enough to feel genuine, lively enough to fill an extended lunch and a wander through the independent shops and galleries.
The evening arrives in Killarney and closes with an Irish dance and traditional music show. It’s the kind of evening that either confirms everything you hoped about Ireland, or introduces you to something you hadn’t expected to love.
Overnight: Killarney Town Centre
Another full Local Day – and the final day for guests on the 10-day tour.
Killarney has been drawing travellers since the eighteenth century, and it earns that reputation still. The National Park is right on the doorstep – 26,000 acres of mountain, lake, and ancient woodland. Hire a bike, take a jaunting car to Muckross House, hike to Torc Waterfall or through the Gap of Dunloe. Or take the morning slowly – you’ve covered a lot of Ireland in nine days, and a gentle last morning is perfectly spent.
For anyone choosing a 10 day Ireland vacation package that ends with a genuine sense of arrival and departure, Killarney does this well. You’ll take the train directly from Killarney station back to Dublin.
10-day tour guests: today is your final day. Choose any train time from Killarney to Dublin.
Guests continuing on the 12-day tour stay a second night in Killarney and pick up tomorrow morning for West Cork.
Overnight: Killarney Town Centre
Out of Kerry and into the most quietly brilliant corner of Ireland.
The route out of Killarney passes through the National Park and up into the Cork and Kerry Mountains – the kind of mountain road that asks for a slow pace and rewards it with sweeping views over the lakes below. Into West Cork, where the towns come one after another, each with their own character: local food producers who’ve been here for decades, music in pubs that don’t watch the clock, and a coastline that improves the further you push into it.
Kinsale is the stop that earns its reputation. A colourful harbour town with more good restaurants per square kilometre than almost anywhere in Ireland – and the southernmost point of the Wild Atlantic Way, which you’ve now been travelling since Donegal. There’s a real satisfaction in reaching this end of it.
Cork City in the afternoon: St. Patrick’s Street, the English Market, a walk along the River Lee. And then Friday night in Cork, which is its own thing entirely.
Overnight: Cork City Centre
A moving farewell – and a very well-earned final toast.
Cobh (pronounced “Cove”) sits on a hillside above Cork Harbour, its painted terraces stacked behind the Victorian cathedral. This is where millions of Irish emigrants departed for America, Canada, and Australia – and where the Titanic made its last port of call before heading west. If you have Irish heritage, there’s a real chance some of your family sailed from this quay. It’s quietly emotional in a way that’s difficult to prepare for.
Then Midleton Distillery – the home of Jameson and the mecca of Irish whiskey. A guided tour through the history and craft of distilling, from malted barley to barrel to glass, and a tasting that rounds out twelve days in the proper Irish spirit. It’s a thoroughly satisfying way to close what is, for most guests, one of the best 12 day Ireland vacation packages they’ll ever take.
Your guide will see you to Cork station for the direct train to Dublin City Centre – or to Dublin Airport if that suits your travel plans better.
End of tour – Cork City Centre
Looking for a fully bespoke experience? Our private tours of Ireland are built around your group, your dates, and your interests – with no fixed itinerary and no strangers.
Have questions before you book? Here are the ones we hear most from guests considering our All Ireland tours – from the difference between 10 and 12 days to what the Wild Atlantic Way coverage actually looks like. Our full frequently asked questions page has more detail, or just drop us a message.
Our guests speak for us. Read what past travellers say about their All Ireland experience on our Lally Tours reviews page – with a 4.9/5 average on Google (2,600+ reviews) and TripAdvisor Best of the Best 2023, 2024, and 2025, the reputation is built on nearly four decades of doing this properly.
