Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher
Cliffs 214 metres above the Atlantic, a plateau of bare limestone, bogs and lakes at the foot of the mountains. A five-day loop from Galway, from the Burren to Connemara.
From Galway Bay to the mountains of Connemara
The trip starts in Galway, a student town with musicians in the streets and in the pubs. To the south, the road follows the bay to the Burren: great grey slabs of rock, criss-crossed by dry-stone walls. The N67 climbs in hairpins up Corkscrew Hill, then drops back down towards Lisdoonvarna. In Doolin, traditional music is played almost every night. Just beyond, the Cliffs of Moher fall sheer into the Atlantic.
West of Galway, Connemara is a land of bogs, dark lakes and bare mountains, the Twelve Bens. Near Roundstone, Dog’s Bay has a beach of white sand. Above Clifden, the Sky Road runs high up, facing the islands.
Further north, Killary Harbour, a fjord 16 kilometres long, separates the counties of Galway and Mayo. You can see the buoys of the mussel farms. A small road then leads to Cong, between two large lakes.
The Burren, a limestone plateau
The Burren covers the north of County Clare. Its limestone formed about 325 million years ago, at the bottom of a tropical sea. Glaciers later scraped the ground down to the bare rock. What remains are grey slabs cut by deep cracks: a limestone pavement. In the middle stands Poulnabrone dolmen, a Neolithic portal tomb. Excavations in 1986 and 1988 found the remains of around thirty people there, buried between 3800 and 3200 BC.
Around 1651, Edmund Ludlow, one of Cromwell’s officers, described a land without enough water to drown a man, nor enough wood to hang one, nor enough earth to bury him. In the cracks, Alpine and Arctic plants grow next to Mediterranean ones. In spring, gentians and orchids flower between the slabs.
The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher form a single geopark recognised by UNESCO. The cliffs, of shale and sandstone, stretch for 14 kilometres and rise to 214 metres. Offshore, the Aran Islands carry on the same limestone. On Inis Mór, the largest, the stone fort of Dún Aonghasa stands on the edge of a cliff.
In the cracks, Alpine and Arctic plants grow next to Mediterranean ones.
The Irish language and music
Connemara is the largest Gaeltacht in Ireland: Irish is still the everyday language here. On the coast west of Galway, road signs are in Irish only, as in Ros an Mhíl, the harbour for the Aran boats. The radio station Raidió na Gaeltachta is based in Casla, and the TV channel TG4 in Baile na hAbhann. In Connemara, people still sing sean-nós, unaccompanied.
In County Clare, the Russell brothers, Micho, Packie and Gussie, made the music of the pubs of Doolin famous. In the evening, the musicians play around a table in the pub, on fiddle, flute or concertina, with no stage and no microphone.
Croagh Patrick
Ireland’s holy mountain, 764 metres high, above Clew Bay. According to tradition, Saint Patrick spent forty days there. Every last Sunday in July, thousands of pilgrims make the climb, on a path of loose stones.
Practical notes
- When to go
- May–June for the flowers of the Burren, September for the quiet. In July–August, Moher and Kylemore are very busy. It rains in every season.
- Getting there
- Galway is two and a half hours from Dublin on the M6 motorway, and about an hour and a quarter from Shannon Airport.
- Access
- Drive on the left. The roads of the Burren, around Roundstone and the Sky Road are narrow, between two stone walls. On the Sky Road, take the upper road, for the view.
- Sleeping in a van
- Campsites in Doolin, around Clifden and near Letterfrack, often closed in winter. Many beach car parks have a height barrier.
- Worth knowing
- At the Cliffs of Moher, the ticket includes parking; it is cheaper online. The national park visitor centre in Letterfrack is free. Since July 2026, it has been closed on Mondays (except bank holidays) and Tuesdays.
- Allow
- Five days for the loop, one more for the Aran Islands or Croagh Patrick.
What not to miss
- 1The Cliffs of MoherThe clifftop path, early in the morning or in the evening, when there are fewer people.
- 2Diamond HillA 7-kilometre loop from Letterfrack, up to 442 metres, facing the Twelve Bens.
- 3Kylemore AbbeyA neo-Gothic castle begun in 1867, home since 1920 to Benedictine nuns who came from Ypres.
- 4ClifdenIn 1919, Alcock and Brown landed in a nearby bog, after the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
- 5GalwayThe Spanish Arch, added to the town walls in 1584, and the stone cathedral consecrated in 1965.
- 6CongThe village of the film The Quiet Man (1952), and the abbey where the last High King of Ireland ended his life.
Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher in pictures
Kylemore Abbey and its reflection in the lake.
The food of the west of Ireland
On the coast, you eat Galway oysters, celebrated at the end of September, Killary mussels and smoked salmon from Ballyconneely or Lisdoonvarna. In the pubs of Doolin, you order a chowder, a creamy fish soup, with brown bread.
Inland, Connemara lamb is raised free-range on the hills. The Burren has its farmhouse cheeses. And to drink, a Guinness or a whiskey.
Loop from Galway city
+17stops- 1Spanish Arch · Dunguaire Castle · Ballyvaughan · Lisdoonvarna
- 2Doolin · Cliffs of Moher · Poulnabrone dolmen · Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, Galway
- 3Aughnanure Castle · Roundstone · Dog's Bay · Clifden
Free, no account needed — start from its places and make it yours.
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