“You are in for a white-knuckle ride here,” says Paddywagon driver Eamon as the 55-seater bus exits the M18 motorway for the narrow country lanes winding towards Kinvara in Co Galway.

Home to Galway hookers and located in the heart of oyster country, Kinvara is the second stop on Paddywagon’s whistle-stop day trip to the Cliffs of Moher from Dublin city centre.

Here, American tourists are encouraged out of the bus to take pictures of Dunguaire Castle across the harbour and avail of a bathroom break.

For Tanya Miller Eager, who works with the University of Oklahoma in the US, the narrow country roads are exactly the reason she booked the 12-hour Cliffs of Moher day trip from the capital.

“Where we come from, the roads are huge, so these narrow [roads] and how he manoeuvred through … I literally was sucking in at certain parts of the trip,” says the Oklahoma resident.

The near sold-out tour took place just days after the tour coach operator Paddywagon was hit with a €5,700 legal bill, comprising a fine of €3,000 and costs of €2,700, after pleading guilty at Ennis District Court to running an unauthorised service to the State’s most popular natural tourist attraction.

The €5,700 bill pales in comparison to profits, as the most recently filed accounts for Paddywagon Ltd to the end of October 2024 show it recorded profits of €771,519 for the previous financial year.

The tour operator was caught when two officers from the National Transport Authority (NTA) boarded the service, posing as tourists, outside the five-star Merrion Hotel in Dublin on the morning of April 15th, 2026.

Tour operator Paddywagon fined over rogue service to Cliffs of Moher

In a statement issued to The Irish Times, a spokeswoman for the NTA said: “To provide a public bus passenger service, an operator must apply for and be granted a licence prior to commencing the service. Licences include a timetable and route that is licensed to be provided.

“In this instance, the operator was providing a public bus passenger service without a licence, an offence under Section 6 ‘requirement to be licensed’ and was convicted in Ennis District Court on 4th September, 2026.”

When asked for comment on the case, a spokeswoman for Paddywagon said “we have accepted the fine that we have received”, but emphasised the company held valid licenses for all other tours it was operating.

The Paddywagon Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher route was first issued with a licence in 2008, and is valid until October 2028.

For some American passengers on Thursday’s trip from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher, the tour was return custom.

“I did a lot of research and Paddywagon had great reviews and it seemed like they offered a lot of variety of activities,” says Sydney Breakfield, who works with the Teachers Union in Colorado.

Breakfield had previously visited Ireland a couple of years ago and this time joined two friends who were also visiting Ireland.

Although she booked the day tour from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher using Paddywagon’s service previously, this year’s trip followed a “completely different route”.

“The first one was a little different, it was a smaller bus and the route was different. I feel like this has been a new experience because it was a completely different route getting to the cliffs,” she said.

She said that if she were to visit Ireland a third time, she would not book the operator again, in spite of enjoying her first two experiences.

“I don’t know about a third time. I think we would try to drive ourselves. Now I want to do a road trip through Ireland and I think I would rather have a car to that than be on a bus tour. Not to the Cliffs but maybe to Northern Ireland or maybe do a coastal drive.”

Not having to drive was part of the attraction for Miller Eager.

“As much as I would love to get into a car, drive on the left, get into stick [manual car driving] again, I just wanted the pressure of not doing that,” she said.

“You also get a lot of information that you don’t necessarily get if I was just driving in the car listening to Jonas Brothers. I would not get this many stories and information that you get from these tour buses.”

Mark Bertermann, a retired Lutheran minister from Washington state in the US was “very satisfied”, with his Paddywagon experience.

“It just had the best description online when I was looking up Cliffs of Moher,” which he described as a “bucket list” item.

He took the coach from Gardiner Street in Dublin city centre to the Clare natural attraction as part of his Ireland trip to celebrate his 80th birthday later this month.

“The bus was clean and comfortable, good explanations by the driver as we went along, kept a good pace, saw what I wanted to see and I was safe,” he said.

As the bus pulled into O’Connell Bridge, rows and rows of mostly American passengers exited – their nationality evident from the generous gratuities. On leaving the bus, Eamon’s tip basket was piled high with €10 and €20 notes.