Travel experts share their once-in-a-lifetime itineraries for hidden Ireland

From exclusive chef's tables to private tours, meet the travel experts creating bespoke, five-star tours of Ireland. They share their once-in-a-lifetime itineraries with Gemma Fullam

Sun, 03 Aug, 2025 - 07:08

Gemma Fullam

“My first tour was in 1998, right after the Omagh bomb. So it was quite the strange time,” says Ginger Aarons.

From the peace process and the Celtic Tiger to the advent of a multicultural society, the travel expert and genealogy enthusiast has seen huge changes across the island of Ireland in the 27 years she’s been bringing clients here on tailor-made travel trips.

And she’s not alone. Her fellow bespoke tour operators, Kate McCabe and Max Sussman of Bog & Thunder and Rachel Gaffney of Rachel Gaffney’s Real Ireland, have also been blazing a trail from the US to highlight a 21st-century vision of Ireland to their clients, and each have their own take on what that is.

Their tours are high-end, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, but all are agreed on one thing: luxury is not necessarily about helicopters, champagne, and five stars.

It’s to be found in those magical moments of connection, a hidden Ireland that’s there, waiting to be revealed, if we just give it the opportunity to do so.

Rachel Gaffney

Rachel Gaffney’s Real Ireland

“Take your time. Otherwise you’re just doing a drive-by,” is what Cork woman Rachel Gaffney advises the Americans for whom she organises bespoke tours of Ireland.

“Allow Ireland to unveil herself, because she will,” says the Dallas-based slow-travel advocate.

Gaffney moved to the States in 1996, having worked in the Irish and UK hotel industry for decades.

She set up her own travel company, Rachel Gaffney’s Real Ireland, when she moved Stateside, and every year spends 12 weeks in Ireland doing on-the-ground research of what’s new and what will chime with her clientele, who, typically, “have a home in Aspen, and a home in Palm Beach, a home here, and a home there”.

“They have pretty high standards,” she says. “They may say they’re low maintenance, and in fairness, most are. Just get it right for them, that’s all they want.

“I have a plan, but I don’t have a plan,” she says of her annual deep dive into what Ireland has to offer.

Coupled with her natural curiosity and an instinct for the new and unusual, what unfolds for her clients is an eclectic mix.

While super-luxe spots invariably feature — “Ashford and Ballyfin, those are the no-brainers. I send people there because I want them to experience that” — if a place can meet her exacting standards, it stands a chance of making the cut.

“I love Perryville House in Kinsale. Their breakfast is one of the most gorgeous in Ireland.”

Gaffney has an eye for perfection, and the custom luggage racks in Perryville’s rooms — no bending down required — merit special mention: “the ergonomics of how you travel was thought about”.

“I’m matchmaking,” Gaffney says of her role as curator of a bespoke offering. “I’m putting clients in the right place for them.”

The “truly spectacular” Dunluce Lodge in Co Antrim, is one of her recent discoveries, and only opened its doors this spring.

“When I visited, they were working on a putting green, which will be the largest putting green in Ireland. It’s for the residents. So, in the evening, you can sit overlooking the sand dunes and the fourth fairway of Royal Portrush and the ocean. Then, if you like, you can walk outside and practice your putting by a fire pit.”

Gaffney likes to immerse herself in a place. “I sit in bars and restaurants by myself. I talk to people. I want to see what’s happening in the area. I want to get a feel for the area, a sense of it.

I want to be able to tell my clients, ‘when you drive out the driveway and take a left, you can continue that coast road or you can take a fork...’”

She rates Clare, calling the county one that’s “really starting to punch above its weight”, and namechecks Doolin’s Fiddle and Bow — “the natural colours, the simplicity, the bare floorboards; they brought the outside in” — and the Michelin-starred Homestead Cottage: “It’s literally in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m finding some of the best hospitality is in the most inaccessible places. If I send people, they’ll throw the red carpet out for them. They’ll just be so delighted to have you.” Cork is close to her heart too, with one of her “most favourite hotels”, Clonakilty’s Dunmore House, sparking memories of a past trip. Gaffney had spontaneously decided to organise a morning yoga class for a group of ladies on an adjacent tiny beach and the hotel staff stepped up to elevate their experience.

After the yoga “what happened was these women, who were in their 60s and 70s, forgot themselves. They were running up and down to the water, making sandcastles. The head gardener had made a fresh-flower crown for the creator of the best one,” Gaffney recalls.

“The hotel staff brought us blankets and a picnic of strawberries and fruit from their garden and cheeses from the English Market. We were still there at four in the afternoon. It was the best day ever. Then the ladies went back to the hotel and had this fabulous dinner and sang songs in the bar. Just magical. That’s luxury.”

rachelgaffneys.com

Rachel loves:

Wilder Townhouse, Adelaide Rd, D2: “It was a mansion for retired school governesses. The history in that building is so interesting.”
Vandeleur Walled Gardens, Kilrush, Co Clare: “Spectacular.”
Barrow House in Tralee: “A white Georgian manor house overlooking Barrow Bay.
Ekotree knitwear, Doolin, Co Clare: “The finest cashmere gloves I’ve ever seen.”

Kate McCabe and Max Sussman

Bog & Thunder

Dubliner Maeve Brennan, a staff writer for The New Yorker in the last century, had no time for cliches about her homeland, decrying “the bog and thunder variety of stuff that has been foisted abroad in the name of Ireland”.

Her adjectives provided the perfect name for McCabe and Sussman’s bespoke travel business, which has an eco-tourism and sustainability focus and operates out of the duo’s Ann Arbor, Michigan base.

“We’re trying to frame Ireland as the modern country that it is. We love the Aran sweaters and we love sheep and we love pubs and all that kind of stuff. But Ireland is so much more than that,” McCabe says.

“We do three types of travel,” explains Sussman, who’s also a chef. “Private itineraries for people who want to plan their own trip; group trips, and retreats.”

The retreats are “a way for us to get more deeply embedded in a specific place,” McCabe says.

For their third annual writing retreat this year, they are staying in Within The Village, “a really special place” in Roundstone, Co Galway.

Last year, Max cooked for the group, and they enjoyed a pop-up by Westmeath-based chef Rose Greene of sustainable fermented food business 4Hands Studio.

Bespoke food tours and curated culinary experiences are a large part of the Bog & Thunder offering.

Two decades ago, New Jersey native McCabe, whose dad is from Tullamore and has connections to Belfast through her maternal grandmother, was “doing political work around some of the outstanding issues of the peace process” as a college student, and it led to her travelling to Derry and Belfast.

After graduation, she continued to visit Ireland and Max, whom she’d met in college, came too.

“We don’t do typical food tours,” explains McCabe, whose background is in environmental policy and sustainability. “When we design our tours, we usually have a theme or a narrative that we’re telling throughout the tour. We’re doing a tour in August with Youngmi Mayer, a Korean-American comedian whose paternal grandmother is from Cork. She just published a memoir where she talks about being Irish and not really being accepted for being Irish because she looks Korean. She’s never been to Ireland before.”

Everyone will “eat amazing food”, McCabe says, and there will be talks on “Irish history and colonisation and immigration and emigration, to ground people in the themes that Youngmi talks about in her book.”

Bog & Thunder lead a group around The Burren

The duo like the value of involving people “who aren’t necessarily guides” in the tour conversations and are also passionate about “trying to translate to people, whether they come on guided trips or do our private itineraries, how much of a multicultural nation Ireland is”.

They feel hidden Ireland still exists, but like Gaffney, emphasise the need to venture off the beaten track to find it. “Give yourself a little bit of time and freedom to explore a little bit. Every time we’re in Ireland, we meet new people who are doing incredible things.”

Once again, the Antrim coast comes up. “One of our favourite bakeries in Ireland is Ursa Minor in Ballycastle.” Lir, a seafood restaurant in Coleraine, also gets the nod. “We like to send people there,” McCabe says.

“It’s a very beautiful spot, they’re very into sustainable seafood, and sustainability is a pillar of our organisation. We like to connect travellers with people that are really walking the walk and actually translating their ethics into the food that they serve in their restaurants.”

Another sustainable seafood spot they love is Goldie, on Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork, while the city’s Izz Café is cited as a “great example of an immigrant couple who moved to Ireland and started a food business”.

Baltimore’s two Michelin star Dede, which they acknowledge as likely to be already on people’s radar, is “one of the best restaurants in Ireland”.

One of the things that makes it really special, in addition to the food, is how warm and hospitable it is,” McCabe says.

“And I’d be remiss if we were to talk about Co Cork and not mention our dear friend, Sally Barnes, the only fish smoker on the island of Ireland to work exclusively with wild fish, which is something that we consider really important.”

Since 2022, McCabe and Sussman have hosted a podcast, Dyed Green, exploring Irish food and culture, and the duo have “a medium-term goal of moving to Ireland. We’d love to own and operate a B&B with a food component one day.”

bogandthunder.com

Bog & Thunder love:

Native Guest House, Ballydehob: We just organised a private writing retreat for some clients there.
Seaweed & Saltwater camper vans: For travellers who really want to get off the beaten path and travel sustainably, they have a small fleet of eco-friendly luxury Mercedes Sprinter camper vans. They’re both off-grid AND high end, and you can shower and enjoy a good night’s sleep on quality sheets.
Dingle Sea Salt: A project run by Tom Leach & Moe McKeown, two surfer-scientists who hand harvest and use polytunnels to evaporate all of their salt.

Ginger Aarons

Time Travel Tours

Yes, it’s her real name, Ginger Aarons tells me over Zoom from Portland, mentioning the Duke of Abercorn is also a sceptic: “he can’t imagine anybody would ever christen me Ginger”.

That impressive namedrop is a clue as to one of Aarons’s areas of expertise, genealogy; the flame-haired entrepreneur is also a master gardener, and combines these passions in her bespoke travel business, Time Travel Tours.

She’s been bringing clients to Ireland to find their lineage since 1998, and can trace her own paternal Maguire ancestry back to the Flight of the Earls in the 17th century.

On her mother’s side, Aarons’s Dublin-born ancestor arrived “in Virginia about 1710”, meaning her US ancestors predate the founding of the United States. “My forefathers fought in the Revolutionary War.”

While her own expertise is considerable — “Ashford Castle uses me for their genealogy” — she recruits experts, such as historic garden consultant and plantsman Neil Porteous and architectural historian Robert O’Byrne, “so that everybody gets a well-rounded look at Ireland and at the history”.

“Taking people around to the gardens in Ireland is fantastic, and I have so much support — at Mount Stewart, Lady Rose came in and they gave us a Champagne welcome. I have great people on the ground.”

Her genealogy tours have a maximum of 12 participants. While they research in libraries and pore over records in great houses, her clients also frequently find themselves in graveyards in search of an ancestor’s resting place, with everyone helping each other in their quest. She has long worked with Historic Houses of Ireland but a new venture will see her promoting education around them and giving “the Irish people more reason to go to these houses, whether it’s for a concert or a country weekend”.

Also in the works is an associated educational film, and a book “Dogs of Historic Houses, which is going to be from the dog’s point of view”.

Aarons believes that hidden Ireland is to be found in these historic houses, some of which have new owners who are bringing new life to these “hidden gems”, as they welcome paying guests for the first time and find inventive ways of making their properties generate income.

Over the course of a fortnight, Aarons’s garden tour clients often see three gardens a day, but the pace is never rushed, and food is always an integral part of the tailor-made experience.

“We do a salvia class at Jimmy Blake’s and then go to Russborough House for lunch and a history tour. We’ll meet the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland volunteers who look after the walled garden at Russborough, and then go to June Blake’s [near Blessington] for afternoon tea.”

This September, Aarons’s garden enthusiasts will be enjoying cookery lessons from Paul Flynn at Dungarvan’s The Tannery, another “hidden gem”, and stopping off at Manning’s Food Emporium, near Ballylickey in Cork.

“I’ve been going there for 25 years. We’ve had little kids come in and do their music and dancing. Then we’d have our picnic lunch and go to Bantry House for the history and the gardens. We’ll be doing that again.”

A new trend Aarons has noticed is more people visting Ireland for sport.

“They want to see games, even if it’s a local hurling or soccer game. People are very interested in what Irish people do in daily life.”

timetraveltours.com

Ginger loves:

Enniscoe House, Co Mayo. “You can do a lot of walking and fishing, enjoy a glass of whiskey by the fire, and they allow dogs stay.”
Dunraven Arms Hotel, Adare, Co Limerick: “A great little hidden gem.”
virtualtreasury.ie: A virtual reconstruction of the Record Treasury and its records which were lost in a fire in 1922. “You can research your ancestry, and look up wills and all kinds of letters on there.”

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