Hi, I’m Lloyd Creagh, founder and lead guide at Creagh Travel. I’ve spent my life showing visitors the real Ireland at their own pace, not a timetable’s. My philosophy is simple: come as you go. There’s no clock to race and no coach full of strangers, just you, your group, and a guide who knows this island inside out and loves nothing more than sharing it.
I’m a badged, certified national tour guide, trained through CIÉ, and I’ve been running Creagh Travel since 2006. Guiding was in the blood long before that.
Years of guiding in one family
Creagh Travel founded by Lloyd
Years Lloyd’s father, Greg, has guided Ireland
My father, Greg, has been a driver-guide for over forty years, much of it with Cronin’s, and he still guides with us today. Between us, that is more than sixty years of showing people around Ireland. When you travel with Creagh Travel you are not booking a faceless company. You are travelling with a family who has been doing this, and loving it, for generations.
Before Creagh Travel I served twelve years in the military, with training in close protection and advanced driving. Over the years that work took me into some interesting company. I’ve driven for visiting US presidents and European dignitaries, and I’ve worked on film and screen productions alongside some well-known names. I won’t say who; discretion is part of the job. What it means for you is simple: wherever you want to go, you’re in safe, experienced, unflappable hands.
I hold a diploma in Irish and European history and a diploma in transport and logistics management, and I’ve never stopped studying the places we visit. The history you’ll hear on tour isn’t read off a card. It’s a lifetime of genuine interest, and I keep the standards where they should be for the travellers we look after.
Ask anyone who has toured with us and they’ll tell you it’s the little things. A song when the moment is right, because yes, I’ve been known to sing on tour. A detour to a viewpoint that is in no guidebook. The right table booked at the right pub. I even played basketball for Ireland once upon a time, which has a funny way of coming up with our American guests. Whatever makes your trip yours, we’ll find a way. We never say no on tour.
One host, one vehicle, one trip built around you. We can arrange everything, from the roads we drive to the places you stay, so all you have to do is enjoy Ireland. That is what we mean by a private tour: not just a driver, but someone who takes care of the whole thing and treats you like family while doing it.
On most trips your guide will be Lloyd or his father Greg, and on busier dates one of our small team of experienced driver-guides. Whoever it is, you get one dedicated guide who stays with you for the whole journey, so there is none of the hand-over between drivers you find on a coach tour. Your guide is the same person who plans the route with you, drives it, brings the stories to life along the way, and looks after the details on the day. Your tour also stays completely private to your own party from start to finish. You will never be grouped with strangers, and the pace, the stops and the conversation are yours. If you have a particular interest, from history to music to food, let us know when you enquire and we will match you with the right guide for it.
Yes. Lloyd is a badged, certified national tour guide, trained through CIÉ on a nine-month professional guiding course, and a member of the Independent Tour Guides Association. Beyond the guiding badge he holds a diploma in Irish and European history and a diploma in transport and logistics management, and he has been guiding full time since 2006. His father Greg brings more than forty years of his own experience to the team. What that means on tour is history and storytelling that come from genuine, lifelong study rather than a memorised script, delivered by someone who has driven and guided these roads for decades. It also means the practical side is in safe hands: proper licensing, careful driving on Ireland’s rural roads, and the local knowledge to make each day run smoothly. If you would like more detail on any of these qualifications before you book, just ask.
Every Creagh Travel tour is private to your own group, so the size is entirely up to you. We look after everyone from couples travelling alone to larger family gatherings and groups of friends, and our fleet runs from an executive Mercedes for a couple up to larger vehicles carrying as many as twenty-six, so we can match the vehicle to your numbers rather than squeezing you into whatever is going. You will never share your tour with strangers, and you will never be one of forty people following an umbrella. Because the trip is only ever your party, everything stays flexible. We can stop when you want to stop, linger where you are enjoying yourselves, and shape each day around the people actually in the vehicle. If your numbers change between booking and travelling, we will simply adjust the vehicle to suit.
Yes. We are a genuine one-stop shop, and for most of our travellers we arrange the entire trip rather than just the driving. That includes your accommodation. We hold preferential rates with a select group of four and five star hotels, manor houses and castles, and we match the places you stay to your route, your taste and the kind of trip you want. Your stays include breakfast, and we build the days, the driving and the sightseeing around them so the whole thing flows. You deal with one point of contact throughout, from the first enquiry to the last morning, which means no juggling separate bookings and no gaps between them. Every trip is designed from scratch around you rather than sold off a shelf, so tell us what you are hoping for and we will put the whole thing together and look after every detail.
Tell us your dates and what you’d love to see, and Lloyd and the family will build a private tour around you, one host, one vehicle, one trip. Come as you go.
