You have to check in online prior to your departure as without doing this you will be charged £40 at the airport for them to do it for you.
By checking in online you save time and can proceed straight through to the security gate.
You can check in online up to 15 days before your trip right up to 4 hours before.
So if you are going for less than 15 days then you can check in both your outbound and inbound flights.
You can check in online here:
http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/...heck-in-online
You will be asked to enter your full name, passport number located on back page of your passport, and a few more bits and pieces.
Make sure you enter everything correctly.
Once this is done for each passenger you will get your boarding ticket.
You need to print this out on an A4 sheet of paper and show it to security together with your travel documents (passport) as well as when boarding the plane.
Repeat this process for checking in for the return flight.
So you will have two A4 pieces of paper. Do not lose these as you will be charged if you need them reprinting at the airport.
I normally forward the passes to my email so if I did lose them I could reprint them from a cyber cafe somewhere.
If you are away for longer than 15 days you will need to find somewhere with a printer to print your return boarding pass.
If less than 15 days you are fine to print them both at the same time.
As regards to hand baggage, as long as the dimensions of the bag do not exceed 55cm x 40cm x 20cm and no more than 10kg, then you are fine.