Trip to Ireland
 

Friends want to plan a trip to Ireland. They will land at the Shannon airport and then take the expressway to Waterford. From Waterford they want to explore the southern route back to Shannon.

Could someone who lives in this area tell me what would be the best time of year weather-wise to visit and to avoid the high tourist season if possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You, June

Hi June,

Have just returned from trip to Ireland. It is very difficult to predict the weather in Ireland, it rains a lot! When we were there it was warm and cloudy, o
Luckily the only rain seemed to come when we were travelling in car.

Tourist times are the same as in the states. Anytime kids are out of school, people are vacations. It rains so much in Europe we've come to the conclusion that were not snowmen so we won't melt! Bring umbrellas and cobblestone is no joke to walk on, comfortable shoes that can take a beating or you will have blisters!! Most important have a blast!!!

We went in late May, early June. We landed in Shannon and stayed at a bed and breakfast. The Irish government has a website where they post the B&Bs that meet their criteria. We used Enis as base and traveled the north west part of the country. We then drove to Dublin and toured there. From Dublin we went south and toured all the different areas, including Waterford, and stayed at a B&B in Cork. We used Cork as base and traveled the south west part of the country. We left from Cork and flew to London.
I planned this self driven trip and was pretty nervous about it but it went great.
Make sure to tell your friends to bring an umbrella. We were lucky it never rained while we were there.

I travelled in Ireland late June for two weeks and it was just lovely. Only had rain one day for a brief period. Everyone was so much fun and smiling, rain just didn't matter. I didn't drive much because I found that driving on the narrow roads on the "wrong" side nerve racking, plus that gave me more opportunity to gawk and look. I would definitely stay away from the usual tourist sites because the small towns and out of the way places were much more fun. However there is no bad place to visit. It is all glorious and the beer, food, whiskey and people are marvelous.