I plan on going to ireland in may, after my college semester ends, and I was wondering if anyone who has done it before me might help me to plan a general route.. Being an archaeology major, one of the main purposes of my backpacking ireland is to see, well, archaeologial sites. When I say that I want to backpack, i mean actually walk. It seems to me as though all the sites I find with information, rely heavily on the use of cars on a day to day basis.

Any way. Sorry. I am, in general, a git. And, for some unknown reason, I just cant seem to find anything on the internet, much less plan a trip.

So if anyone can help me, I would love you forever.
Thanks! :insane:

sorry. I forgot to mention above that I would like to go everywhere that i can, time not being an issue. though money certainly is. I am also very keen to see galway... very keen.

thanks again.

Well LM, how's she cuttin?

First off I wouldn't recomend walking on Irish roads it's not safe. They twist and turn and go up and down and in most cases your walking on the actual road. Short walks are fine and many towns have walks you can go on which are more than likely littered with ruins and ancient sites. Inbetween places take the bus, there's loads.

I hope you know your stuff though allot of the ancient sites look like bumps in a field. My town Dunmore (Dun Mor) means large fort and you can still see the original fort altough it's, like I said a hollow hill in a field. You'd never know from looking at it that it was part of a settlement.

Places of interest are the hill of tara,
Bunratty castle
The burren
Waterford has rebuilt one of the ships that took the Irish to America during the famine,
Negrange is probably the best ancient site in the country.

More ancient sites

There are town's that still have much of the original walls left from medievil times and I can't for the life of me remember them...

Try google.ie for more information they have an Ireland only button. The government has a tourisim site but i don't have time to find it at the moment.

Oh! If your comming to Galway, see the aran Island there's an amazing fort on it.

^ good on ya meturk, damn i know nothing about historial sites in ireland, but i could take ya on a good tour of the pubs!! :lol:

if you really want to hike the country of ireland...here's the trail i found through google...
A Journey Across Ireland

I would highly recommend Newgrange and the Aran Islands. Both are absolutely incredible.

:cheers:

I'm travelling alone in Ireland right now. It's great! I liked Dingle a lot!!! And Kilarney National Park. (Both in Co. Kerry). Galway (city) is awesome. Dublin is also pretty awesome. I went to Doolin too in Co. Clare. It was nice but the Cliffs of Moher have too many tourist around. You can hike to more secluded areas though. I didn't find Limerick or Cork (city) to be all that interesting. I'm in Belfast right now. Northern Ireland still creeps me out but everyone keeps telling me that am fine. Tourists get left alone here.

oh! and rent a bike and cycle around everywhere you go.