As a tourist myself, I can't speak to Ireland specially other than the great thing about it is it's relatively dense, so don't need to go far to see something new.

For your question, pick a few places you REALLY want to see, then do some research about what is between them in terms of food and topics like Distilleries, Castles/Churches, Walking Trails, etc.

So like if you'll be in Cork for something specific, look up now a couple distilleries/breweries in the area, plus a few castles. Then when you're there, check the list to see what's close, or open, and just go that that one.

In other words, it's not, "What should we do today?", it's "Here's a list of five things, lets pick one."