Our latest itinerary

We will be heading to Ireland for the first time in about a month. We have revised our itinerary several times. Here is the latest. I haven't written down all that we will do at each stop but just wanted to get an idea from others if this is a good route or if we should make some changes:
Day 1: arrive in Dublin, spend the day sightseeing as best we can coming off an overseas flight
Day 2: Bus tour to Belfast/Giants Causeway
Day 3: Get car and head for Galway, stop at Clonmacnoise, See some of Galway, Spend night there
Day 4: Galway, Connemara, spend night in Galway
Day 5: Burren, Cliffs of Moher, Stay in Doolin or Ennis or Dingle? * (We are considering driving straight to Dingle and staying the night there but are concerned about time and distance)
Day 6: Head to Dingle Peninsula, then back to Killarney, night in Killarney
Day 7: Ring of Kerry, spend night in Killarney
Day 8: Head back to Dublin, several stops along the way (Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel, Cahir Castle?)
Day 9: Flight home in the morning

You'll def be busy.

Day 2: skip the tour and visit Wicklow and Glendalough.
Day 8: visit the Rock of Cashel

While your route is good..the number of things you expect to do and the distances you are planning to travel will leave you little time to truly enjoy Ireland. In particular if you have not driven there, you'll find the amount of time it will take you going around Connemara or out to Dingle, even going through the Burren out to the Cliffs of Moher will be significant. Doing both the Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula is redundant & though both places are great, you really don't have the time to enjoy either. I'd suggest you focus on 3 or 4 areas...go there and enjoy (i.e. actually spend a full day in a place). Galway City, for instance, can take quite a while to explore (and over the years it has grown so much & the traffic is so great that it can also take you a while to get from "a" to "b"). A full day (from start to finish) is needed for Connemara, you'll want to stop in some of the towns & experience/tour Kylemore Abbey, walk around a lake or two, etc. If you are going to Killarney, you won't want to miss Killarney National Park and Muckross Estate (also look into getting a DPW national heritage site pass...it will save you money if you plan to visit many of their sites). Again, that will take a large part of a day. I agree w/the person who selected ROck of Cashel or Cahir Castle...and forego Blarney...although if you want to experience some of the living history of Ireland Bunratty and the folk park does a good job of that).

Enjoy, relax, have a glass and participate in the craic...those are the memories which will last.

I completely agree with the above. It's a holiday; you don't want to spend all your time in a car. It's 3hrs plus driving from the Cliffs of Moher to Dingle but that doesn't factor getting stuck behind someone doing 50kmph on a narrow windy road where there's no opportunity to pass out.