Tour coaches drive the Ring anti-clockwise, by convention and by necessity — the road at Coomakista is not wide enough for two of them to pass comfortably. Which means that if you go clockwise in a car, and start early, you spend the day looking at empty road instead of the back of a bus.
That is the single biggest thing a private driver buys you here. The second is the freedom to stop. Ladies View, Moll's Gap, the beach at Derrynane, Staigue Fort up its narrow boreen, the sheepdog demonstration outside Sneem — none of these are long, and all of them are the point.
If the weather closes in, we can turn the day inland through the Gap of Dunloe and Black Valley instead, which is arguably more dramatic in rain. Your driver will tell you honestly which way to go.
