Lonely Planet Ireland [Paperback]

Tom Smallman (Author), Steve Fallon (Author), Pat Yale (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998 | Series: Lonely Planet Ireland

This new edition covers travel in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and includes accommodation options from B&Bs to five-star hotels, a detailed activities chapter ranging from cycling to water sports and background on the history, culture and politics of the region.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, if you're going there, chances are Lonely Planet has been there first. With a pithy and matter-of-fact writing style, these guides are guaranteed to calm the nerves of first-time world travelers, while still listing off-the-beaten-path finds sure to thrill even the most jaded globetrotters. Lonely Planet has been perfecting its guidebooks for nearly 30 years and as a result, has the experience and know-how similar to an older sibling's "been there" advice. The original backpacker's bible, the LP series has recently widened its reach. While still giving insights for the low-budget traveler, the books now list a wide range of accommodations and itineraries for those with less time than money.

From pub-hopping and leprechaun-chasing to Ogham stones and the Book of Kells, Lonely Planet presents the essential Ireland. In addition to the requisite lowdown on food and accommodations, a detailed activities section covers everything from walking and birdwatching to hang gliding and rock climbing. The book's intriguing "boxed asides" delve into topics ranging from the mystical to the environmental, including the witch of Kilkenny, the legend of Inishbofin Island, the Birr Observatory and Telescope, even Ireland's disappearing bogs. --Kathryn True

Review

…these smart and exhaustively researched guides have become the gold standard for serious, independent travelers.' --San Francisco Chronicle
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 700 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 3rd edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864425309
• ISBN-13: 978-0864425300
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,183,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > Travel > Europe > Great Britain > Northern Ireland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT!!!!, August 6, 2000

By 

K. Riley (Fayetteville, AR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ireland (Lonely Planet Ireland, 4th ed) (Paperback)

I just returned from a three month bike tour of Ireland. I had no tour guide; I brought only myself, my bicycle, clothes (of course), and four guide books on Ireland. The one book that I used over and over again, leaving all others tucked abandoned within my pack, was the Lonely Planet guide. The LP guide has detailed chapters on anything and everthing in Ireland, including phone numbers, prices, hours, city maps, hostels, B&B's, hotels etc... It also includes history and facts so that when you do arrive in Ireland and see a castle or a dolmen or the Burren, you will know the story behind it. I can't say enough good things about this guide. If you are going to travel in Ireland, this book is a must!

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings, October 3, 2005

By 

Steven D. Lydick "stevelydick" (Grand Island, NE United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ireland (Paperback)

I've used the lonely planet guides on other trips before, and have always been very pleased, but this one left me with a different taste in my mouth. LP was the only guide we purchased, based on our previous experiences with them, but we had the chance to peruse others in the B&B's we stayed in throughout our trip. Of all of them, I'd rate the LP as the 2nd best for our interests - as they say, individual experiences may vary! Ireland has become a very expen$ive tourist destination, so upon reflection, we would have been happier with the Rough Guide. LP has just tried to hard to cover all levels of expense in one guide, and has ended up short-changing all of them in the process. I hate to say it, but I'd rather see them do one thing well than 3 things mediocre at best. I'd still put it above most of the other guidebooks though.

Our first and foremost gripe is how out of date the price estimates on everything are. I realize it was published two years ago, but we gradually learned to depend on everything costing about 20% more than LP listed. That's quite a jump for 2 years, indicating to me either poor fact-checking for the 2003 edition, or some pretty crazy inflation and a need for another update.

Our second gripe was the local maps. They failed to provide maps for a lot of the smaller cities, and only provided maps of the city-center areas in the larger ones. Given the rarity of Irish street signage, those maps would have been a God-send for navigation in towns. Also, and this may be a function of the 2003 printing, a lot of the towns in Ireland are instituting one-way patterns in their city-centers, and LP's maps rarely identified this.

A third, again related gripe is with the existance, or lack thereof, of the various restaurants, b&b's, shops, etc. listed in the guide. Probably 30% of the restaurants in the guide just aren't there any more. I realize they must have been when it went to print, but that didn't help us any.

Our last gripe is the rather uneven coverage of large areas of the country. Granted, it reflected perfectly the tourist patterns - heavy coverage of larger cities and popular tourist areas along the coasts, pretty awful coverage of less touristed interior areas. Unfortunately, we didn't just want to go where all the other tourists go, so this left our noses still further out of joint.

Overall, I'd say if you want a guide that covers the sightes well, both LP and Rough Guide do that. If you want to keep the expenditures down, Rough Guide does it much better. If you want to go all out, um, there's probably a third option, but neither of these two will do it well. If you want to be thrifty in some areas and splurge in others, then this guide is the closest you'll get to filling your schizophrenic needs in one place - although, in that case, I'd really recommend getting two guides, one for each end of the spectrum.

One last piece of advice - buy a heritage card when you get to your first castle/tomb/historic place! If you plan on visiting more than one or two historic places, its 20e cost will be recouped within days with all the free admissions it will get you for the rest of the trip!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good Lonely Planet guide, December 11, 2001

By 

RM (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ireland (Lonely Planet Ireland, 4th ed) (Paperback)

As with many other countries, Lonely Planet has a very good guide for Ireland. Every city, town, and village are covered in this book. No matter where we were, we could always find something on the location. The index is wonderfully useful for that purpose. There are also some suggested itineraries. My only criticism is that LP seems to have missed many of the excellent guesthouses in Ireland. I would think this should be LP's speciality, so found this aspect disappointing. Still, I would not leave home without LP, on this trip or any other for that matter. Even if you don't want to go the budget route --something many associate with LP -- you will gain from the descriptions of places, restaurant and pub recommendations, maps, history, and more. And despite its reputation, LP does list high-end hotels, castles, and the like. I haven't found a single excellent guide for Ireland, so I suggest doing some internet research before leaving and taking LP and at least one other guide (I like the Blue Guide series).

Bon voyage!!