Arrive in Dublin on suggested flights and make your way to the hotel. Renaissance Tours or your travel agent can assist you with your flights and other travel arrangements including travel insurance (a condition of travel), private hotel transfer, accommodation before or after the tour and a room category upgrade.

At 18:00, join Kenneth Park and fellow travellers for a welcome briefing and talk at the hotel, followed by dinner.

(D)

Begin the day with a private, guided tour of Malahide Castle, an 800-year-old medieval fortress. King Henry II gifted Richard Talbot the lands and harbour of Malahide in 1185, which the Talbot family resided in until 1973. Over the centuries, the family amassed a varied collection of notable artworks, furniture showcasing Irish craftmanship and historical items.

Continue to Trinity College to view the iconic Book of Kells, a ninth-century illuminated Latin manuscript of the Gospels symbolising traditional Irish culture in its combination of Christian iconography and Hiberno-Saxon pagan art motifs.

After lunch, visit the National Museum of Ireland and marvel at its collection of Celtic art and archaeological treasures, including Bronze Age jewellery and exquisite chalices and brooches recovered from burial hoards.

(BL)

In the morning, drive to Tullynally Castle. Built in the seventeenth century, the castle has been in the same family for almost 400 years. After extensive remodelling in the nineteenth century, the property resembles a Gothic revival castle with walled garden, woodland walks and ornamental lakes.

Continue to Belvedere House for a guided tour of the manor, built in 1740 for the first Earl of Belvedere by Richard Cassels, one of the foremost Palladian architects of Ireland. The house features the infamous ‘Jealous Wall’, a giant limestone folly made to resemble a crumbling ruin, which was erected by the Earl to obstruct the view of his estranged brother’s mansion next door.

(BL)

Check out of the hotel in the morning and travel to Powerscourt Estate, whose 19 hectares of mansion and landscape gardens were laid out in their present form in the eighteenth century. The mansion, once the seat of the Viscounts Powerscourt, is now owned by the Slazenger family.

After free time for lunch at Powerscourt, continue to Kilkenny, arriving in the mid-afternoon.

Tonight, dinner is at the hotel’s restaurant.

(BD)

After a talk by Kenneth in the morning, travel to Jerpoint Abbey for a guided tour of the evocative ruins of this Cistercian abbey featuring fine stone carvings, with elements of both Norman and early English artistry.

Travel southwards to Waterford and enjoy lunch at a local restaurant, with some time to visit the Waterford Crystal Store.

Return to the hotel in the late afternoon and enjoy the evening at leisure.

(BL)

Check out of the hotel and visit the Rock of Cashel, an impressive complex of fortified towers and church buildings that marks the spot where St Patrick converted the King of Munster to Christianity in the fifth century.

Continue to Cork to visit nearby Blarney Castle with its Stone of Eloquence, said to give ‘the gift of the gab’ to those who press their lips to it. The castle itself is a partial ruin dating from the fifteenth century, but the stone has had a wide variety of origins ascribed to it: it was the coronation seat of Irish kings, the pillow of biblical patriarch Jacob, a lawyer’s good luck charm before pleading his case in court, and many more besides.

Arrive to the hotel in the mid-afternoon and enjoy some time at leisure before dinner.

(BD)

This morning, travel to Cobh, on the southern coast of Ireland, the harbour town from which many fateful voyages departed, including Australian convict transportees in the early nineteenth century and the RMS Titanic in 1912. Visit the Cobh Museum with its collection of artefacts and records representing the town’s history as many travellers’ last port of call in Europe, and the Titanic Experience Museum in the White Star Line Building, which served as the ticket office where the passengers boarded the Titanic.

Afterwards, travel to Fota House for lunch before a private, guided tour of the house designed by brothers Richard and William Harrison, which represents Ireland’s finest example of Regency architecture, with neoclassical interiors and an extensive arboretum.

(BL)

Check out of the hotel and travel westward to Bantry House, near the southwestern reaches of Ireland. Originally built in around 1700 under the name ‘Blackrock’, the house has been owned by the White family, wealthy merchants from Limerick. The house and gardens comprise seven terraces, filled with exotic species collected on the family’s many foreign voyages.

After lunch, continue northward to Muckross House for a tour of the charming nineteenth century house and garden which became the core of the very first national park in the Irish Free State. Built in the Tudor Revival style, Muckross House sits on a 4,500-hectare estate.

Check in to the hotel in the late afternoon and enjoy dinner at the hotel’s restaurant.

(BLD)

Begin the morning with a talk by Kenneth before setting out for a day travelling along the popular ‘Ring of Kerry’, a scenic trip around the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, on Ireland’s west coast. Admire the dramatic landscapes where coastal mountains drop into the sea, surrounded by rolling green valleys, pebbled beaches and rural seaside villages.

Enjoy lunch at a local restaurant before continuing through the evocative landscape that has seen the Atlantic coastline of Ireland dubbed ‘the homeland of the wandering, wistful Gaelic spirit’.

The evening is at leisure.

(BL)

Today, depart for Galway, the main Irish port for trade with the European continent for hundreds of years. The city redounds with the history of competition between indigenous Gaelic farmers and artisans and the wealthy Hiberno-Norman merchants who presided over the city government from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

Check in to the hotel in the afternoon and enjoy some time at leisure before dinner at a nearby restaurant.

(BD)

This morning, check out of the hotel and travel to Sligo. See historical sites related to Sligo’s favourite son, Nobel Prize-winning poet WB Yeats, and the uninhabited Lake Isle of Innisfree, inspiration of the eponymous poem. Visit St Columba’s Church in Drumcliffe, where Yeats’s paternal grandfather had served as rector and where the poet himself was buried beneath a simple headstone.

Check into the hotel in the late afternoon before dinner at the hotel’s restaurant.

(BD)

Today, depart to Northern Ireland for a visit to the house and gardens of Florence Court. Built in the eighteenth century, Florence Court displays delicate Rococo interior design and some fine examples of Irish furniture, while the landscape gardens feature eighteenth and nineteenth century plantings, including an Irish yew tree dating to 1767, the progenitor of almost all Irish yews throughout the world.

After some free time for lunch, continue to Belfast and enjoy an orientation tour of the major sights of the city, once the centre of the world linen trade, before checking in to the hotel.

Tonight, dinner is at the hotel’s restaurant.

(BD)

Enjoy a talk by Kenneth before a visit to the eighteenth-century Georgian edifice, Hillsborough Castle. It has been the official government residence in Northern Ireland since the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922 and is currently used by the British monarch and other members of the British royal family when they visit the region.

Continue to Mount Stewart House, and after a light lunch in the café, explore the elegant house and gardens, former seat of the Marquess of Londonderry.

In the evening, enjoy a special farewell dinner with Kenneth and fellow travellers to celebrate the conclusion of the tour.

(BLD)

Tour arrangements conclude after breakfast.

For those returning home today, make your way to Belfast Airport for suggested flights to Australia or New Zealand. Renaissance Tours or your travel agent can assist you with your flights and other travel arrangements, including a private airport transfer, additional nights’ accommodation either before or after the tour and travel insurance (a condition of travel).

(B)