Small Escorted Tours of Ireland

We returned from a week long private castle hotel tour of southern Ireland and can’t say enough positive about this small company
. Margaret makes scheduling your trip an awesome experience — her attention to detail and responsiveness are unsurpassed. No request too small to get her immediate help prior to your trip and the follow through making sure everything we set up actually happened was perfect. On our trip, our guide/​driver Noël Johnson regaled us with lore of Irish culture and daily life stories — his good Irish humor was brought to bear throughout the trip and his stories and running commentary were the most memorable and irreplaceable part of our journey. What a delightful man — very patient and kind and we recommend him highly! Not to underestimate the importance — A good safe driver too!!! All the castles were unique and special in their own way and having our private tour meant we could start and our days as we pleased without attending to anyone else’s schedule. In all, for what’s delivered, this is the most value conscious, highest service level we could have expected. We’d be happy to answer any reader questions, but our most important advice would be not to hesitate booking with this company — we thought they were simply the best!

We just returned June 2014 from using Small Escorted Tours of Ireland (
). We told Margaret our dates and she came up with hotels and an itinerary. Sean Finnegan was our driver/​tour guide and his commentary and great Irish sense of humor made the trip a delight. We spent the nights in Kilkenny, Kinsale, Killarney, Galway, Connemara and Dublin. The pace was fast (one night at each hotel), but we learned and saw so much, yet it was relaxing because everything was done for us. The hotels all offered terrific hot/​cold breakfasts with our package and we paid for lunch and dinners. Margaret made dinner reservations for the 12 of us in advance. As it was my MIL’s 80^th birthday they even made arrangements for a birthday cake at one restaurant!
All of our hotels were walking distance to nightlife and dinner and we were ALL able to walk the short distances. The dinner reservations were made at restaurants that offered 25 – 30 Euro 2 or 3 course meals with fantastic food. Ballynahinch Castle in Connemara was a dream to stay at and the lamb dinner was perfection. The castle meal was our fancy/​expensive meal of the trip. I did check reviews of Margaret’s suggestions of hotels and restaurants on
and
and made 1 or 2 small tweaks. Small Escorted Tours of Ireland allowed you to arrive and depart any day they had availability which was exactly what we needed.
They are members of Discover Ireland, a consumer website operated by Fáilte Ireland, the tourism board of the Republic of Ireland, and were discussed in several articles by USA Today that you can read by a Google search. Sean Finnegan is also a licensed/​certified Tour Guide and Driver.

I was thrilled with my experience. Small Escorted Tours allows you to customize your itinerary and there is flexibility because it’s only your group on the tour. Say you want to scratch something along the way… no problem! You’re peering out the van window and see a sign for the pottery shop. Want to stop? Easy peasey!
The only thing you’re locked into is hotel accommodations. Included in the cost is ground transportation, daily breakfast and sleeping accommodations.
During the planning process, we communicated mostly over email and they were very responsive. They’re locals so they’re able to offer suggestions but very willing to put together the tour the way you want it. For example, I was interested in touring some local cheese farms on my visit. While this is not an ordinary request, they did the research for me and suggested two farms for us to see. They were great suggestions and fully met my expectations. (Even my family members who were teasing me for wanting to visit a cheese farm were impressed!)
Our driver, Maurice, most definitely, made our trip perfect! He listened to what we were interested in and offered suggestions along the way. He recommended restaurants/​pubs. He explained Irish history and local lore — including some blarney, which made for great laughs! He took us places we never would have found on our own or would’ve likely died trying (i.e. Connor Pass, Cong Abbey, Ballintubber). He gave us tips on when to pay an admission and when to admire from afar.
He never steered us wrong!
Icing on the cake: Because we had a driver there were no arguments over navigation or driving skills and there was an improved accountability for family members to be ready to go at designated times.
Thinking of visiting Ireland? This is a great way to do it!