mileshound

A few of us middle aged me are thinking of hiring a car and driver for a private 9 hr tour of the Dublin area. We were going to use "Authentic Ireland" tours.

Has anyone used them or are there other recommendations?

Airnuts

Yes Capn. Forget the car and its expense, take a good pair of sneekers and walk. A taxi from your hotel across the bridge (if necessary) doesn't cost the world and there are so many Irish pubs full of craic (say crack) that you won't even be able to FIND your hired car with driver after the third pub.

It really isn't a hard city and I should have something under my Tips or Recommendations or Travelreports sites which are subsidiary to my travel.holidays.com main website. I'll improve the Dublin section next week but, if you want some URLs to surf to the best sites, you can drop me a mail at [email protected] if you start the subject [DUB] to avoid auto-trashing, and I'll mail to you plain text without attachments but with hyperlinks

I recently was over there to meet a cousin and his family from NZ. They weren't impressed with what they saw in Dublin but they missed the whole point.
It is a country like my Isle of Man where nobody hurries to do anything

Craic is Gaelic and means fun, good atmosphere and humour all rolled into one. An English version somewhat gets the idea when we say "we had a cracking time". If you like Guiness then you'll have one but don't even think of asking for American or Continental beers as they are regarded as CP (the C stands for Cat's and the rest you can work out).

Have a great stay in Dublin and take it easy
They are lovely people

Airnuts

PS Don't ask for food outside normal serving times which are similar to the UK
East between 18.00 and 21.00 latest and lunch between 12.00 and 14.00 latest.

gaelflyer

Strictly speaking craic is the Gaelic spelling of an English word no longer widely used outside Ireland. However we use the Gaelic spelling to distinguish the word from the many other meanings of crack. However you spell it be sure to have it!