The new direct flights to Ireland are dreamy – but here’s why you should skip Dublin

A festive group was gathered in a sheep pasture in the midsummer evening drizzle. Farther up the grassy hillside, a bonfire burned next to a stone chapel ruin. I stepped out of my rental SUV to investigate, blending into the crowd speaking mostly Irish Gaelic.

At a folding table covered in bottled spirits, a tall man handed me a shot glass of something clear, sweet and strong. Seeing my disorientation, he explained: “That man is up there building the fire. When he comes down, we’ll go up and then you throw your stick in the fire to absolve your sins.” He added cheerfully, “Then you’re good on sins for the rest of the year!”

So my travel companions — my 18-month-old daughter Petra; her mother, Sabrina; and her grandmother Sharon — and I obliged. When the fire starter, a grizzled older man in a wool sweater looking a bit of a sea captain, descended the hill, everyone took from a bundle of slender branches. I hoisted up Petra as the group circled a medieval holy well three times, then hiked up through long grass wetted by perma-mist. Finally, people took turns hurling their sticks, and sins, into the flames.

That was our lucky encounter with Bonfire Night, a ritual taking place all over Ireland every year on St. John’s Eve, June 23, two days after the solstice. We were on the atmospheric Dingle Peninsula, near the westernmost point in Ireland and an enclave of Gaelic culture.

I had been in rural Ireland for all of a day, and I was already immersed, and enchanted.

If you’ve never been to Ireland, I can confirm that it’s everything you’ve heard, only more so.

Endless greenery punctuated by castles, ruins and megalithic sites. Meadows, mountains and precipitous rocky coastlines. And, of course, jovial pubs from the Irish Sea to the Atlantic Ocean serving the best gastropub fare you’ve ever had (fish and chips with Guinness and whiskey) and top-notch traditional music floating through the air.

This year, Irish carrier Aer Lingus restored nonstop flights to Dublin from Minneapolis, a move matched by Delta Air Lines. Both are selling out on the route throughout the summer. But having spent a modest week in the Republic of Ireland, my advice for other first-timers is ironic:

Skip Dublin. There, I said it.

Don’t get me wrong: The Irish capital is thriving, fun and a literary hotbed, with a backdrop of grit. At Trinity College, we took in the immersive, touristy Book of Kells Experience celebrating the ornate ninth-century manuscript. We strolled the scenic St. Stephen’s Square and the St. Patrick’s Cathedral grounds, usually looking for quaint playground breaks for Petra.

But Dublin is just too expensive right now, with modest rooms in popular areas starting around $400. We found a relative deal at Keavan’s Port Hotel at $330 a night. (Reportedly part of the reason for the hotel shortage is an influx of Ukrainian refugees.)

Worse, Sabrina and I hit the much-photographed Temple Bar nightlife district only to hear a stream of mediocre acoustic cover acts (think U2, Cranberries, Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift). Unacceptable! Overall, I’ve had better recent city experiences with a similar vibe in Edinburgh or Copenhagen.

With limited time, most Irish explorers will prefer to go west. Better yet, skip the cross-country drive altogether and fly into Shannon, with a layover in New York. Shannon sits at the center of the 1,500-mile Wild Atlantic Way tourism trail, and within two or three hours of the famous Cliffs of Moher, Dingle Peninsula, Ring of Kerry and great secondary cities such as Galway, Cork and Limerick.

Searching for vacation homes in greater Ireland, I found amazing-looking properties from County Kerry to County Donegal, often lower than $200 a night. I settled on a gem: a modern three-bedroom, split-level cottage near the tip of the storied Dingle Peninsula, with panoramic views of the Atlantic and the historic Blasket Islands.

A five-day booking made it easy to declare Dingle the base for our trip.

On the four-hour Saturday drive from Dublin, we stopped for supper at the Locke Bar in Limerick, with a huge patio overlooking the River Shannon. A mural of late local icon Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries loomed by nearby King John’s Castle. When a young woman inside the busy pub leapt in front of a folk band to perform a skilled round of stepdance, I wondered: Was she part of the act, or do people here just spontaneously do that?

Now we were truly in Ireland.

In remote West Kerry, Dingle dispenses with Ireland’s English/Irish bilingualism, and many road signs use only the old language. Our country house was at the midpoint of the Slea Head Drive sightseeing loop, or 20 minutes over a nerve-wracking mountain pass from touristy, bustling Dingle Town.

(Left-side driving with a rental stick-shift on these single-lane country roads is not for everyone. Not only does an American have to learn to anticipate danger from your right side first, and look out for sudden oncoming cars, you also have to adjust your center of gravity so you don’t clip any objects on your left. But enough about my driving.)

Next door to our house was colorful Krugers Bar, billing itself as the westernmost pub in Europe (point taken, although Iceland would like a word). Our host also clued us in to the local family friendly pubs — such as Paidi O’Se’s, celebrating a legendary Gaelic footballer and such famous visitors as Dolly Parton — as well as the word-of-mouth location of Bonfire Night.

One morning, an unattended herd of sheep surged down our tiny road, on their way from the mountain to the sea. They were marching to one of the most iconic sites in Dingle, the Dunquin Pier, with its sharply winding path descending toward a pair of green pyramidal sea rocks. Miles to the south, you can spot the similar Skellig Michael, which doubles as Luke Skywalker’s island in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy.

My family headed to the pier and strapped on lifejackets to ride a tiny ferry 2 miles to off-the-grid Great Blasket Island. With toddler in tow, we could barely keep up with a tour group on the misty, windswept isle, so we wandered around a ghostly ruined village that had been abandoned in 1954. An enormous colony of grey seals lounged on a sprawling sandy beach.

Another day, I rented an e-bike in Dingle for an intimate self-guided tour of scenic Slea Head, while the others beelined for the “Hold a Baby Lamb” family attraction and 12th-century stone “beehive” huts, the likes of which are also seen in “The Last Jedi.”

I would have been content to relax in our oceanside house and casually explore Dingle for yet another week. But we checked out a day early to take a car ferry across the River Shannon for a requisite visit to the famous Cliffs of Moher, on a long way back to Dublin.

The Cliffs were indeed very beautiful, and very tall, soaring 500 feet over the Atlantic. That night we dined in a packed McDermott’s Pub in the cliffside village of Doolin, where a local Uillean pipes virtuoso named Blackie was holding raucous court. As we walked out, Petra attempted a vigorous stepdance of her own in my arms, to the amusement of tourists and locals.

Over seven days in Ireland, we seemingly packed in a month’s worth of experiences. But even better, we’re good on our sins for the rest of the year.