I’m writing this column sitting on a large soft couch in the gallery across from a huge fireplace in Dromoland Castle, a gray stone building in western Ireland that has roots going back to the 5^thcentury as the ancestral home of one of Ireland’s royal families. It’s a real castle complete with a circular turret with crenellations for fortification that make it look like a giant chess piece.

Parts of the structure were built in the 15^thcentury, the 17^thcentury and the 20^thcentury. Staying here is an otherworldly experience. These ancient walls, decorated with gilt-framed portraits of long-dead aristocrats, seem to transport you through a bend in the fabric of time to a world far removed from the present. And yet the ancient environment seems familiar, evoking ancient or long suppressed memories.

Dromoland is just one stop in the itinerary for Brendan Vacations’ new Small Group Discoveries product, which the operator plans to inaugurate officially in April 2011. I’m traveling with a small group of journalists to get a sneak preview of the product. Nico Zenner, Brendan’s president who is hosting this trip with Catherine Reilly, director of Brendan Ireland, calls the new programs “boutique tours.” They are designed to be “intimate, immersive and experiential,” he says, which is increasingly what the market is asking for these days. Indeed, nearly all operators are responding to the demand in their own ways.

Small Group Discoveries are based on groups with a maximum of 24 passengers, half the size of Brendan’s traditional tour groups. They use smaller, more luxurious motorcoaches that can go places the larger coaches cannot go. Smaller groups also can stay in smaller scale properties, such as bed and breakfasts, castles and manors, and engage in activities that are not available to the larger groups of Brendan’s regular product line.

Brendan’s new itineraries are designed to provide more intimate encounters with the local people than would be possible for a larger group. The schedules are more leisurely, with fewer early wake ups and departures. The groups are led by a driver/guide, rather than a separate tour director and driver. The price is higher and the feel of the experience throughout will be more luxurious than Brendan’s traditional product line.

Brendan is introducing the new product line in Ireland, where it began and, in a sense, where the heart of the company continues to reside. Brendan has its roots in Ireland. Brendan’s founder, Jimmy Murphy, is from Ireland and many of the company’s top staffers are Irish. Murphy, of course, sold the company a few years ago to the Travel Corporation, but most of the staff has stayed on. Brendan has grown into a global operator, but still owes its origins to Ireland and still has a strong focus on the country.

If the new Small Group Discoveries is a success, and it is so in synch with the demands of the marketplace it almost surely will succeed, then Brendan will expand it to other destinations. The company is starting the new series with three programs: a nine-day tour that focuses on culinary interests called Tastes and Tales of Ireland; a 10-day program that focuses on special accommodations called Castles and Manors; and an eight-day tour with a more general focus called Castles, Lighthouses and Pots of Gold.

The three introductory itineraries will define the model for the series. They are designed to be accessible to people who may not be able to take much more than a week off. “We have to adapt to what the market wants,” Zenner says. “Americans are more time-deprived than ever.” Brendan can easily extend the trips for anyone who would like to stay on longer on a custom-built independent vacation, which is about half of its business these days.

For this beta test for journalists, Brendan put together an abbreviated sampler of the three tours. It began with a night at the Westbury Hotel in central Dublin then headed west across the island to Ireland’s west coast, through Galway and then north to the Ballynahinch Castle, and then to Dromoland and back to Dublin.

We had an accidental moment to compare the new product with Brendan’s regular itineraries when our group stopped at a marble shop in Connemara. It happened that one of Brendan’s regular groups was also visiting the shop and had arrived just before us. Their 48-passenger coach was parked outside the shop and ours was parked across the street.

I had been told that the Small Group Discoveries use a smaller coach, but it was still striking to see the two together. I knew that a 24-seat coach had half the capacity of one of the larger ones that accommodates 48 passengers, but seeing a coach twice as large as ours was still a bit of a shock.

Now I’ve been on many group tours and I enjoy them, as I do many different styles of travel. But the contrast was stark. Forty-eight people in a little store is still quite a crowd. It exemplified the principle that Zenner had explained to me. There are many places you can’t go and things you can’t do with 48 people. Our group was not at the full capacity of 24, but our itinerary was designed to accommodate that number. It also was easy to see and feel the difference when we encountered the larger group.

I have no doubt that Brendan’s new Small Group Discoveries will be welcomed by the company’s clients, since it represents where at least one segment of the tour market is headed. And our Ireland tour was a good introduction to the new tour line. For more information on Brendan Vacations, call 800-421-8446 or visit www.brendanvacations.com.

David Cogswell is executive editor covering tours for TravelPulse.com.