Travelling around Ireland

You've omitted one vital piece of information. I'll ask for it to save others having to ask. How long are you allocating to the non-Dublin part of your trip?

1. Depends on what's more important to you: having everything planned for you in detail or having the freedom to linger when and wherever you want to.
2. I understand this requires a bit of planning. I'd say Ireland is one of those few western European countries where car rental beats public transport, especially if you want to explore the coast.
3. No, you'd spend too much time driving and you can easily find B&B in any town of more than 5 houses (or at least that was the impression I got).

I hope you don't mean to say that your whole stay in Ireland, including Dublin, is one week?

Sorry for the lack of the vital information - I am in Dublin for one week only then I would like to head off around the botoon part up to Galway etc.

My whole stay in Ireland is for one month 4/5 October through until 30 October.

With regards to having things planned or freedom - I like a little of both. May be I could do a tour and then cruise around by myself?

phew, 1 week for all that... that'd be, um, hectic.

With 1 month, I think car hire is going to be too expensive. On the other hand, that's loads of time to travel easy.

There's buses between most towns in Ireland. I recently discovered that there's a bus to Kinsale, for example.

So the first thing I'd do is sit down with some guides and the internet and find out which towns I want to stop at. Then I'd check the buseireann website and look up the buses. Then I'd look up some likely B&Bs. Then I'd stop worrying about it and take it as it comes. You can also buy the Bus Eireann timetables in book form in Dublin, so you can plan ad-hoc as you go along.

There's various types of passes available for the bus, so check out your options and figure out which one is best. You should save a fair bit of money doing that.

Train are more expensive than buses, but faster over the long distances, so may be an option.

For the really out-of-way places, you can always hire a car for a day from the bigger towns, like Tralee, Cork, Galway, etc. etc. or check out local tours if you really want to.

My calculation is:
Start: 5 October
Finish: 30 October
Total days:25
Less time in Dublin: 7
Remaining for visiting rest of Ireland: 18

You're trying to cover far too much ground in 18 days.

I think you do have enough time to at least travel around the southern part of Ireland ending in Galway City, and as sean suggests, the main thing is to determine how you want to do it. Many of the towns and villages you mention may not be worth stopping in; I don't know how you chose them. Busses will do a fairly good job of traveling between towns of any size, but it will take longer than rental car. In many rural areas, the places you want to see are not covered by a bus route, and you will need to do an organized day tour or rent a car. Killarney and Galway City are 2 places to base yourself if you want to do organized day trips. You can research what's available. Day trips from Dublin will cover Wicklow and surrounding areas.

I don't think that simply traveling through these towns by bus will be very rewarding, it's the scenery and small villages you probably want to see. I would suggest choosing some specific things you want to see and do.

Trains are really only good for getting to major destinations, they don't know rural areas very well.