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Horse Riding Holiday in Ireland

This listing has one of the 10 most popular offers available in in Ireland

Discover Ireland’s beautiful nature and colorful history from horseback! Your horse will willingly carry you through scenic rural Ireland with a wide variety of landscapes from extensive bogs, enchanted forests, fresh rivers, and peaceful lakes. To join this tour, riders have to be physically fit to ride up to 6 hours daily at all paces in a group of horses. The Irish Horse Riding team will make sure that your house matches your experience and that you have a wonderful experience!

Key Information

  • Rider weight limit: 185 pounds / 85 kilograms
  • Horse height range: 14 to 17 hands
  • Tack type: English tack only
  • Horse breed: Connemara, Irish Cob, Gipsy Vanner / Tinker, or Irish Sport Horse

Meet the instructors

Bertie & Nicola
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Highlights

  • 4 days of guided trail riding with an approximate daily riding time of 2-6 hours
  • Explore enchanting moss-covered forests
  • Easy ride to the surrounding peaceful forests through the Slieve Aughty mountains
  • Learn Ireland's history while passing old farm ruins and miles of stone walls
  • Discover 5,000 years old Neolithic dolmen and ruins of a monastic settlement
  • Canter along sandy shores and trail along typical farmland of rural Ireland
  • Enjoy lovely wood tracks overlooking Glandaria (the Valley of the Kings)
  • 5 nights accommodation with full board meals (Saturday to Thursday)

Skill level

  • Intermediate
  • Advanced

Styles


4 days with instruction in English
The organizer also speaks: French, German, Spanish
Group size: 4-8 participants
Airport transfer available:
Dublin Airport (US$ 335 per person)
Airport transfer available:
Shannon Airport (US$ 58 per person)
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Accommodation

Check-in Time:
12:00
Check-out Time:
10:00

Facilities

  • Bar
  • Concierge desk
  • Dining area
  • Environmentally friendly
  • Fireplace
  • Garden
  • Lobby
  • Lounge
  • Luggage room / storage
  • Meditation garden
  • Multilingual staff
  • Picnic area
  • Restaurant
  • Special menu request
  • Free parking
  • Free Wi-Fi
  • Internet access
  • Laundry
  • Library
  • Meeting room
  • Parking lot
  • Tour assistance
  • Wireless internet

An Sibin Guesthouse

The tastefully restored 300-year-old farmhouse is in the heart of the riding center. The ambiance of old times gone by is carefully maintained and yet all modern facilities for the riding guests are provided. The guests can relax in individually decorated ensuite rooms.

Program

Day 1, Saturday: Failte to Ireland

You will arrive at Shannon Airport (SNN) and be transferred to the An Sibin Riding Centre in Whitegate. Transfer from Shannon to Whitegate takes approximately two hours. On the arrival day, you can just relax and recover from your journey, or take a stroll on the well-mapped nearby East Clare walking trail.

For the more adventurous under you, there is also the possibility to go on a guided boat tour to the historic Holy Island with its monastic settlement of the ninth century. In the evening, you will get to know all your fellow riders for this week. You will have dinner in the tastefully restored 300-year-old farmhouse in the An Sibin Riding Centre by candlelight and open turf fire.

Day 2, Sunday: Riding Day

After breakfast, you will be brought to the start of the trail, where your guide will allocate the horses to you according to your experience. Every rider can then get used to his own horse for the week by brushing and tacking up, don’t worry - there are always lots of helping hands around you. You will then leave for an easy ride into the surrounding peaceful forests and huge areas of heather and bog land using old tracks through the Slieve Aughty mountains. You will ride your horses to a field where they stay overnight and you will be driven back to the the An Sibin Riding Centre for lunch. Riders and horses take a rest for the afternoon and enjoy a relaxing evening.

Day 3, Monday: Riding Day

Today’s ride brings you up over the hills of the Slieve Aughty mountains with fascinating views over the majestic Lough Derg and River Shannon. Along the track, you will be passing old farm ruins and miles of stone walls, and your guide will tell you about Ireland's most significant incident in history.

About 150 years ago, many farms and villages were left because of the famine. This was the time of the severe potato disease, which destroyed for a couple of years the sole source of food supply for the rural and poor Irish peasant and his stock. In addition to that, a typhus and cholera epidemic enforced the disaster, leading to a flood of millions of people emigrating to other countries or starving with hunger.

Knowing about those times, you will be greeting the tasty lunch waiting for you before you head across the extensive areas of bogland in the afternoon. There, you will pass local farmers cutting and drying the turf in the traditional way. A Neolithic dolmen with the legendary name Oisin’s and Grainne’s Grave beside the track proves that this area was already mystified about 5,000 years ago. Much younger (about the ninth century) are the ruins of a monastic settlement on Holy Island, which you can easily spot by the well-kept typical round tower.

Day 4, Tuesday: Riding Day

Leaving the sheltered pasture, you are heading this morning for the top of the hills again overlooking endless woods and grazing land to the north, west, and south. Long before you get there, you can spot way under you the sandy shores of Lough Graney where you are heading.

The trail goes right across the refreshing lake. The ride in the later afternoon takes you through the typical farmland of rural Ireland with its lovely green fields and the endless old stonewalls surrounding the peacefully grazing sheep and cattle.

Day 5, Wednesday: Riding Day

Today’s lovely wood tracks take you further westwards overlooking the wide fertile valley of the River Shannon, where hundreds of years ago Ireland's kings preferably used to settle. After the lunch break near a typical mountain river, you will cross the boggy uplands.

County Clare unfolds all around you up to the in the distance-rising hills of the famous Burren National Park. On a clear day, you will even get the first glimpse of Galway Bay.

Day 6, Thursday: Slan Abhaile

After breakfast, you will be transferred back (if booked) to the airport for your onward journey.

Note

  • Riders have to be physically fit to ride up to 6 hours daily at all paces in a group of horses.
  • Riders have to be physically fit and safe in the saddle at the walk, trot, and canter in the outdoors.
  • Non-riders are also welcome, there is plenty for them to do including hiking, cycling, sightseeing, golf, etc.

Instructors

Bertie Cummins

Nicola Hobucher

Location

You will be discovering Ireland’s beautiful nature and colorful history on horseback. Ireland is undoubtedly a nature lover’s paradise. Especially in the West of Ireland, there is a unique combination of sand and limestone soils, boglands, lakes, and woodlands. An immense variety of flowers, shrubs, and trees burst into bloom every year.

The influence of the Gulf Stream with its warm, moist, and “soft” air stream and the very small winter / summer temperature differential enhances the growth of many commonly known plants, as well as several rare kinds of flora. No wonder the local farmers praise every day as it comes “grand soft day today, thank the Lord!”

Ireland’s colorful history is reflected in a stunning variety of prehistoric evidence, like megalithic tombs and dolmens, Celtic ring forts, and burial sites, each of them with its own local legend and myth. The Celtic culture and language dominated Irish history for thousands of years, and even now, the legacy is still with it.

Food

Irish Horse Riding will serve you meals from arrival day evening meal to departure day breakfast, with daily lunch. Tea, coffee, and water will be also available.

The following meals are included:

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Drinks

The following drinks are included:

  • Water
  • Coffee
  • Tea

The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:

  • Vegetarian
  • Gluten Free
  • Regular (typically includes meat and fish)
  • Lactose Free
If you have special dietary requirements it's a good idea to communicate it to the organiser when making a reservation

Things to do (optional)

  • Bicycling
  • Birdwatching
  • Boat trips to Holy Island
  • Golfing
  • Hiking
  • Walking to the fairy tree
  • Walking on the local hiking trail

What's included

  • 4-day guided trail riding
  • Use of horse and English tack
  • Service of the guide
  • 5 nights accommodation
  • Daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner
  • Tea, coffee, and water

What's not included

  • Arrival and departure transfers
  • Alcoholic drinks and sodas
  • Tips for waiting or guide staff
  • Personal, luggage, travel, or accident insurance

How to get there

Recommended Airports

Arrival by bus

From Dublin Airport (DUB), you can ride a bus to Loughrea with www.citylink.ie. Transfer from Loughrea (route 763) to the riding center is available for 45 EUR per person in a group transfer at 16:50. Meanwhile, a transfer from Whitegate/Co.Clare bus stop is available for free. You can get to Whitegate with the "local link bus Ireland".

GPS

  • N 52.98031 W 8.40423
Airport: Dublin Airport Airport transfer available: Dublin Airport (US$ 335 per person) Additional charges may apply. You can request this in the next step.
Airport: Shannon Airport Airport transfer available: Shannon Airport (US$ 58 per person) Additional charges may apply. You can request this in the next step.

Cancellation Policy

  • A reservation requires a deposit of 14% of the total price.
  • The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
  • The rest of the payment should be paid 30 days before arrival.

Value for money
Accommodation & facilities
Food
Location
Quality of activity
6 days / 5 nights
from --
Availability

This vacation is available from May to August 2025 with a stay from Saturday to Thursday, please select your arrival date below. 

Minimum group size

This trip requires a minimum of 4 participants

Select your package:

For this organizer you can guarantee your booking through BookHorseRidingHolidays.com. All major credit cards supported.

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