I’m travelling for some days all along the West Coast with no particular destination points (apart from visiting some friends.) Just stopping here and there where there’s something worth to see. I have been to Scotland twice (one in August) with no bookings and I never had a single problem to find vacancies. Is it too different in Ireland and is booking in advanced recommended?
Cheers
You should be OK but during a weekend like the present with the warmest weather in years AND a bankholiday you may find the coast packed. The August bankholiday is alsolikely to be very busy.
Thanks Peter. We’ll be there from june 27th until july 12th. So no bank holiday around. Weather is likely to change but anyway, who desires a dry hot Ireland? I find much more pleasant not being restricted by distance, timetable or reservations when travelling. Plenty of that in my life…
My wife will look for some dance tuition and I’ll try to get good fluting advice from locals. I don’t rule out lessons. Any suggestion?
Rgds
Does the Board Failte still have offices/counters in many places? If so, you can often just roll into a town and they’ll have a list of local B&Bs and sometimes their vacancy status. (For a surcharge, they might still even call around and book one for you.)
A lot of the lodgings used to have Failte shamrock signs on them too (so you could tell them apart from private homes); you could just knock on the door and inquire directly of the owners.
I don’t know if they still have this system, but it was great for us over about six weeks of aimless wanderings back in the early 90s …
Cheers Cathy, we’ll just ‘knock some doors’. In Scotland every owner was friendly, hospitable and helpful. I remember some elderly couple making some calls to find accomodation for us since they were crowded. We have the same feeling about Ireland.
We found there the most valuable and up-to-date guide: owners of B&B’s. They always asked: ‘Where are you heading to?’ and they gave us lots of info about what to see, what to not to miss and what to do. Therefore, some days we drove only 25 miles and we took 8 hours! So far that day we had done some canoeing, walked through forest paths, gone to a minute isle within a loch, seen salmon leap falls, and so on…
Isn’t it a luxurious spleen wandering and resting where and when your mood fancies?
Well to be honest, the weather is a welcome change from what we had the second half of may. It’s lovely, not too hot, clear with a bit of a fresh breeze from the ocean, thing get actually dry.
At that time you could fit in the Willie week, or a part of Tubbercurry (and for those, do try sort the beds in advance)
Up Willie!
We are never satisfied…In summer, my city (which is otherwise beautiful)is simply Hell. Today we reached almost 40 º Centigrades and it’s only june. We’ll get up to 47ºC in august and we are not likely to see any rain in htree months…for us, rain is that welcome change…We even have to buy a couple of Mackintosh!
We had three days of 98 F (roughly 36 C, I think?) in a row last week. Beastly.
And I totally agree with you on the B&B owners as activities guides – they’ll even tell what what not to waste your time on! 
Cheers, Sylvester, and have a marvellous trip.
And Peter, may it rain on Sylvester but not on you. (From my experiences in Ireland, that’s entirely a possibility!)
…let be it…but not too much!
I never made reservations and never had trouble finding a place, although sometimes I had to look around, and once or twice the three of us ended up crammed into a double room since it was all they had left.
The smaller the town you are going to, the more advisable it is to call ahead. In Galway in the evenings outside the bus station there are B&B representatives recruiting guests for their remaining rooms.
Cheers fiddler, have good friends in Galway. We’ll abuse of their hospitability staying some nights there.
You’re true. I also think the point is getting more or less around 12:00 PM when there are lots of vacancies. The later, the more difficult to find. In Scotland sometimes I got my room really late and the chances to choose were rather poor, but never had to sleep in the car!
You’ll certainly land on your feet for accomodations in Ireland even at a late time. After one of the Tommy Kearney Tionols in Kilkenny, a taxi driver took me to a B&B at 1am. I expressed concern that we’d be waking the folks - he grimly replied “They’re in the business.” - and it was no bother at all. Into a room I went, the owner asked what time I wanted breakfast (10am), and payment was due on check-out.
The Bord Failte book lists so many B&Bs that you can fine tune your plans for in-town locations, castle locations, etc. Space is finite so pre-booking would sometimes be important but you’d likely never be left for wanting.
Mick Dooley owns and operates a guest house in Tralee, Co Kerry, Teach an Phiobaire (The Pipers House):
http://homepage.eircom.net/~teachanphiobaire/
Thanks Jim, that reassures us to go with no bookings.
Mick Dooley owns and operates a guest house in Tralee, Co Kerry, Teach an Phiobaire (The Pipers House):
http://homepage.eircom.net/~teachanphiobaire
Definitevely a place to drop by if we are around. You should know that I’d run serious risk of being killed by my wife if she notices that I’ve been reached that place on purpose.
It’d be something like: “…look…there seems to be a B&B and it’s getting dark. I can drive on but you look tired, sweety”
Next morning: Full breakfast, UP workshop and ugly faces… 
Claim you don’t understand Irish (THE PIPERS HOUSE is not on the street sign). Mick is a pipemaker , plays for guests, teaches reed making, and certainly can guide you to the local action as needed. There is a very active pipers club there (Dave Hegarty, Mick Dooley, Stephen Scales, et al).
I am still selling you on the Bord Failte book since it does help you figure out what is local and remote - touristy and non-touristy - crowded and non-crowded with all of the distances worked out to local sites and scenes. It is like a practical map. You don’t need to book in advance but it is one handy book!
Claim you don’t understand Irish (THE PIPERS HOUSE is not on the street sign).
Cheers mate. I’ll do my best. (I can be certainly good at that, for God knows I can’t understand a single word in Irish!)