Visiting Ireland in a Motorhome

VISITING IRELAND IN A MOTORHOME. (by Ally)

Visiting Ireland in a Motorhome whether it’s North, South, East or West, everyone has their favourtie area’s and will recommend different parts of the island depending on what they consider to be their favourite.

Personally having been motorhoming since 2011 and 99% of that time has been spent in Ireland, I have yet to find a place I didn’t like, some of course are nicer than others, in my view, but none that I wouldn’t go back too, well maybe one or two if I’m honest. Eight years (at the time of this article) is a relatively short time compared to others that I have met along the way.

The friendships that have been created through meeting other Motorhome owners mostly from Motorhomecraic.com is nothing short of amazing.

There are numerous guides, books, maps all available and mostly copied all over the internet, however none of these would exist without the Award winning App which came from a map that was created by the members of Motorhomecraic.com over a period of 5 years before it was turned into an app in late 2016. The knowledge and time it took to create that first one is an example of an amazing community, willing to help all Motorhome owners.

Motorhome Parking Ireland

The App has it all and has a free version if you wish to try it. It can bring you to wonderful and amazing places, we don’t use campsites a lot but when we do one of our favourite Campsites is Strandcamping Doonbeg, County Clare, along with many many others!

Of course there are many many places to visit, Campsites, Aire’s, Parking Places that some would call Wild Camping, (we prefer not too as it gives the wrong impression to Joe Public) and loads and loads of friendly pubs and Restaurants that allow you to park overnight as long as you visit their premises and have a swallow or too have a meal, whats not to love about that!

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GETTING TO IRELAND, NORTH and SOUTH

As most Motorhome owners know, getting to Ireland or getting away from Ireland in a Motorhome is a ridiculous costly experience. I ran a bit of a campaign back in 2011 when we still used that (un)social media, Facebook, there is not much to view of that now but all MLA’s in NI were written too and we even made it to BBC Newsline. Nothing changed. But my favourite damning quote was from P&O Ferries that when asked why was there such a price difference on the Irish sea routes compared to the English Channel routes went something like this “as we have no competition on the Irish Sea routes we can charge what we like”. Another piece of information that is startling and damning is the genuine fact that Celtic Link Ferries were intending to put on a Rosslare to Pembroke route, in detailed emails to myself they were quoting prices of £80 return for a Motorhome, how incredible would this of been? they were very quickly bought over by Stena and anything intended was gone. So what does that tell you? :/

In the meantime we have a few options, none of them cheap. There are however cheaper ways of doing things. Sail at night, sail on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday with Stena and get it for the same price as a car.

You can sail with Irish Ferries who have some great offers on from time to time.

Going to or coming from France?

Depending on where you’re travelling from and where you decide to go, you have a number of options for crossing the Irish Sea and St George’s Channel.

Ferry Operator	Routes
Irish Ferries	Holyhead to Dublin Pembroke to Rosslare
P&O Ferries	Liverpool to Dublin Cairnryan to Larne
Stena Line	Cairnryan to Belfast Liverpool to Belfast Holyhead to Dublin Fishguard to Rosslare

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So what else is available for tourists visiting; Ireland North and South has its usual mix of Motorhome Clubs, some in NI are national Clubs that are a branch of the same Club in GB, so check if you are a member of those if there is a branch in NI, you may be entitled to discounts.

But it would be remiss of me, as much as I detest that (un)social media, not to mention the Facebook groups available for those that use that platform. Our own group: Motorhome Ireland, the biggest Community on the internet for Irish Motorhome owners. Motorhome friendly Locations Ireland is one of the biggest Irish Motorhome groups on Facebook. There is also Motorhome Locations Ireland, Irish Motorhome Owners, Ireland campervan experience. Also the biggest Motorhomes and Accessories advert group available in Ireland which is shared by some of the above groups, Irish Motorhome Sales & Accessories

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Irelands largest Motorhome Community

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Goosey Island Motorhome Park, Sneem, County Kerry. Photos by: Rob Rebbit

To be continued……………….