Planning an Ireland Trip for My Father

[XXXNoahXXX]

OK, so my family is Irish, my father is basically obsessed with our Irish heritage, but he is 70 and has never been able to afford going back to Ireland. At 70 he is still working 50-60 hours per week to support my mom (who also works two jobs) and my brother who is still in college. Anyways, I want to send him on a trip to Ireland.

Some concerns:

1. All he wants to do is see the scenery and sit in a pub/coffee shop and read and write. He'll probably drink one Guiness the whole time there and doesn't care about any "nightlife" unless it involves the theater.

2. He is slightly losing it. I mean, he doesn't have Alzheimer's but I think the smoking weed daily for 50 years is finally catching up to him in that he is becoming a little forgetful and driving in the car with him is scarier than most rollercoasters.

3. Is it awful to not include my mother in this trip as she has never been out of the country? I just feel like the clock is ticking on my dad, so I want to do this for him, but can't really afford both of them. One option might be to borrow it from my grandfather and repay him this coming summer when I'm making 3k/week. That way, they both could go, although I'm not sure how well they'd do together given my dad would want to sit and write for hours and my mom would probably want to get out and see stuff.

4. If I do borrow some money or my deadbeat brothers chip in, and my mother goes, how practical/enjoyable would it be for them to head over to Paris or London for a few days (preferably Paris)? I know RyanAir has some insane deals right now where its like $20 each way. Would this be doable if the trip was only 7-8 days (4 in Ireland, 3 in Paris?)

5. How tough is it to drive in Ireland? I'm guessing I'd pay the extra to get an automatic so he wouldn't have to worry about shifting with the opposite hand. I'm kind of worried that if I let him loose on the roads over there, he'd be coming home in a box.

6. Now some more general questions: Where should they stay? What should they do? Should they pick one nice B+B and stay there for a few days or hit up a new one in a new place every night? I just don't know how much driving would be involved and don't want them to spend half the time in the car in some effort to see everything.

I have vouchers so flight will be Delta and I have a $100 expedia coupon towards the car rental, but any other sites you could recommend that might sell B+B or castle packages?

[noc]

I think I saw a Citi Bank commerical on this yesterday. But they went to Norway instead.

[Butnahhhhh]

5 years ago when i was going into my senior year in highschool my entire moms side of the family went to ireland. Some things that i remember that would be helpful:

When we went we stayed in a small town in a mansion where about 20 of us stayed. we had a two cooks and a family took care of cleaning and other duties while we were out.

1) the scenery is amazing and the coffee shops/pubs are awesome.
2) the driving will probably be the most difficult if driving in the US is hard for your dad. When we took trips to the desired location we wanted to see we had to drive big SUVs on small winding roads in sometimes very difficult conditions. Obviouly you wouldnt need big vans but the driving can be very dangerous. We rented 4 vans and by the end of the trip 3 of the 4 vans had been damaged, one busted tire, several mirrors knocked off by rocks goign through tight tunnels. So him driving i would not recommend.

My suggestion would be to have them go to a bed and breakfast, and then have them pick out a few places that they would want to visit / sightsee. The best day was when we hired a tour guide to take us around the countryside.

we did seem to spend a lot of time driving to and from locations but that was because the good golf courses werent close to where we were.
hope this helps

[snowbank]

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I think I saw a Citi Bank commerical on this yesterday. But they went to Norway instead.

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haha. i was gonna say.... make surrrrrrrrrrrrre you're dad's irish first.

pretty cool idea though noah.