Visiting Ireland with the non horsey family

[tinah]

Since I’m fairly certain I can’t exactly hop off the plane and leave the hubby who has no travel experience in a strange country with 4 kids, but I kinda feel like if I’m going all that way i should at least ride out once. . .

Where should we go? Kids range in age from 4-12, and the 12 year old is my only rider. She’s competent 2nd flight, and could probably move up if she had the right horse. I’m thinking someplace that would let us hack out one day to make sure we can keep one leg on each side, then hunt the next.

I’d like for there to be enough non-horse activities close by for the rest of the family to not feel left out. They aren’t terribly picky, although hiking, ruins, farms, and markets are probably more their style than movies and cities.

And hopefully we can find an airbnb instead of a hotel to keep lodging costs down, but obviously we’re a little but flexible there.

I’m not even sure what part of the country to start looking in.

[Rackonteur]

Is riding//hunting your reason for wanting to visit Ireland? Are there particular activities the rest of your family wants to do? Places to see? That would affect which part of the country you could start looking in.

I would Google fox hunting in Ireland to see what’s available. When does hunt season begin there, anyway?

[tinah]

I’m fairly certain the hunt season parallels ours. I figured Ireland since there’s castles and things, and awesome places to go hiking. the entire family does better in rural areas than urban, and the 10 year old aspie kid is obsessed with castles, swords, druids, etc. the littles(6&4) i’m not so worried about, as they are pretty low maintenance. wherever we go, the food needs to be approachable enough for a meat and potatoes Okie who thinks Mexican is exotic and can’t handle spice. I’m not really into the architecture thing. Walking around looking at buildings pretty much bores me to tears. And I’m trying to ease hubby into international travel, so being able to navigate in English is important.

So we need/want:
Rural areas accessible and friendly to tourists
Good scenery for walking/hiking
Food not too far out there
Castles
English
Horses, at least one or two days.

And I don’t suppose it has to be Ireland, but with the way things go it might be another 10 or 15 years before I make it out again.

[evilc123]

The Irish National Stud is a wonderful place to visit, even with non-horsey people. You can’t ride there, but when I was there I saw lots of mares and foals and several of the studs. It is a remarkably beautiful property.

[MissCoco]

West Ireland!
I visited with my mother in 2015, and there are a lot of gorgeous rides there (and options for short non-expert horse and/or pony adventures for the non-horsey crew if they have interest)

There are many castles for visiting, as well as beaches, walks to old churches, and incredible views. Connemara is a beautiful part of the country, and even on days with nasty weather, we never failed to see a rainbow during that leg of our trip!

Galway is a really nice town, and not much of a city at all, but has some cool museums and great restaurants if you do want some more urban activities, perhaps using a spot on the outskirts of town as a base could give a good compromise between being in the middle of nowhere and having a larger variety of options for the non-riding crew.

Willie Leahy is well known for his day-long rides in Connemara, but I know there are few hunts in the vicinity of Galway as well.

A couple other activities we really enjoyed in Ireland were kayaking (there are short and long guided trips on lough corrib and galway river, if you do choose to focus on west Ireland)
We kayaked in Kerry with Outdoors Ireland (a fabulous company, I’d recommend contacting them if you end up in their neck of the woods, their owner, Nathan, was the consummate host and tremendous fun when we spent an early morning kayaking with him)

We also did a falconry walk at Ashford Castle, there are a couple different locations in Ireland that offer falconry hikes, and the one we did was incredibly cool! Highly recommend if you can swing it.

Also for what it’s worth, if you aren’t experienced at driving on the other side of the road, Shannon is a much more friendly airport to navigate than the Dublin airport (not to mention Dublin itself).

As for food, Ireland is not famous for its cuisine, which actually makes it a great choice if someone with you needs bland options! I don’t think we were ever in even the smallest town where a ham and cheese sandwich wasn’t on offer, soups were typically quite ordinary, and beef-and-potato dishes are mainstays for sure.
West Ireland is famous for seafood, so if anyone in your crew is an adventurous eater (or just likes seafood), they may be very happy campers indeed! But even at places right on the ocean, in oyster season, every bar had burgers and sandwiches on the menu as well.

I highly recommend the Rick Steve’s guide to Ireland for it’s guided drives and not-overly-touristy focus, we used it as our primary source in planning our trip, and loved our time there.

[tinah]

Thanks so much, miss coco! That’s exactly the sort of information I’m looking for!

[Equibrit]

Don’t forget, if you want to hunt you will be going during the months when the weather is not so good, and touristy stuff will be harder to find.

http://www.countygalwayhunt.com/

[Feliz]

You could join the Horse & Hound forum & ask there - I’m sure there would be plenty of local knowledge & experience.

Sounds like whatever you do it will be a great holiday

[Equibrit]

Google “Irish Country Holidays”

https://www.hogansirishcottages.com/…s-ireland.html

https://www.countrycottagesonline.com/ireland

and many more.

“Irish Equestrian Holidays” gets you;

https://www.ireland.com/articles/wha…an-in-ireland/

http://www.ehi.ie/

and many more.

But first…get a map!

[tinah]

y’all are the best. Seriously!

[BigMick]

Check out Cooper’s Hill Livery. They offer cross country rides and treks. They are in west Ireland in the Galway area.

[AKB]

We rode at Cooper’s Hill Livery in Galway and loved it. Their beach and burren rides are amazing. We stayed at a lovely Air B and B home in Connemara, on the outskirts of Clifden. There are lots of fun things to do in Ireland. Dublin Falconry was a favorite. The Cliffs of Moher are amazing. The food in Ireland is fantastic. Fresh seafood, Shepherd’s Pie, and Irish brown bread are favorites.

[173north]

Definitely go to Galway. I planned a trip to foxhunt and my non-horsey parents tagged along. We stayed in Loughrea and I rode at Dartfield with Willie Leahy and hunted with the Blazers. My parents went to Galway town, to the Irish Stud, to the Cliffs of Moher, castles, etc, and we met up for dinner. Excellent time had by all. Flights from East Coast to Shannon are fast and cheap. Ireland gets a bad rap re: food but every meal we had was great.

I went in late October which was perfect - hunting just getting started so it’s a tad more laid back, and nice weather to spend the day outside. The “best” hunting is in Jan/Feb apparently but it was PLENTY fun for me. If your daughter wants to hunt, be advised that for the Blazers, at least, there is no second flight. Everyone goes very fast over very big walls! Find out which hunts the riding outfits hunt with and then watch some videos of each hunt on Youtube.

[Equibrit]

What happens out hunting in Ireland/England is that there are no “flights” or “fields” as Americans are used to. Fieldmaster gives a lead, those that can keep up do, and the rest travel at their own pace. Most of the really old hands will know all the shortcuts and go-arounds and will often never jump a single thing. Beware of banks and dtches in Ireland!

[otterhound]

Irish folk are great to hunt with - always friendly and welcoming, and fairly low-key when it comes to turn-out etc. I hunted there 2 or 3 times a week for 5 weeks all on borrowed horses, and had a ball! If you’re down Cork way, Blarney Castle gardens are fantastic, especially for druid fans.

[jawa]

From my friend that has been several years, she thought that you could only go as a guest once formal hunting had begun, but she found that was not the case with all hunts and it was MUCH cheaper to go during cubing than during forma/regular season.

[gottagrey]

Loughrea is a great “home base” to tour the west part of Ireland, and is about 20 minute or so drive to Galway City though traffic can be an issue. It’s also home to Willie Leahy’s Connemara and Aille Cross riding holidays. They are very accommodating so you could probably book a days ride with them at Dartfield to match you with a suitable hunting partner and your riding child could also enjoy a ride that day as well. Non horse family could either follow the hunt along by car, or choose to go to Galway for the day. A fun day trip is to take the ferry from Galway City to the Aran Islands, there the Dun Aengus ruins which dates back to 500 BC! There are some cute stores and nice restaurants where you might get treated to some traditional Irish music.

Connemara is beautiful but might not be a great place to visit during hunt season - late Oct - end fo Feb. If you make Loughrea your home base it’s easy to make day trips to Cliffs of Moher or other highlights. I’m finding it harder to book flights direct to Shannon, so you could land in Dublin, rent a car and take a leisurely trip from Dublin to Loughrea.

As far as the food goes, I’m sorry I’ve yet to have a bad meal there.

[notlost]

I didn’t go hunting, but I did spend one day of our two week family vacation “hunting” for a horse–and I found the perfect one. . My family is NOT horsey at all, so we did very touristy things. We started in Dublin, and there we went to Trinity College, did some James Joyce things (my partner was a Joyce scholar), did a lovely storytelling dinner at Boars Head pub, toured Kilmainham Gaol, and I may or may not have visited the Dubarry store.

We went north then, stopping by the Hill of Tara, Bective Abbey, and Trim Castle. We stayed in a B&B which was a lovely farmer’s home, then went to the coast to see a lighthouse. We went to Belfast and took a Black Cab tour (and met some of the best folks ever in a little pub that was our cab driver’s favorite haunt!), then went to the Giant’s Causeway–REALLY impressive.

We went further west to Donegal, and toured the castle there (and bought a lovely wool sweater), then drove down the lovely coast to Sligo, where we went to the Yeats museum and wandered the city.

We came down to County Mayo, where I found my lovely pony while my family went ahead to Galway. We stayed several days there–it’s simply lovely–going up through Connemara (Kylemore Abbey is beautifully situated there). We spent many evenings at O’Connors Pub. We drove back to Dublin, going to Sandymount, Martello Tower, and Howth (more Joyce stuff).

We’re planning to go back and go around the south part of Ireland next time. We stayed mostly in B&Bs, and the people were simply the nicest folks I’ve ever encountered. I had tea with several families, and I got to meet some fabulous people in the pubs. I WOULD love to go on a horse-centric vacation, but I understand making compromises. Have fun!!