Ireland beyond Dublin is a different country. The west coast — the Wild Atlantic Way — is 2,500 kilometres of Atlantic-facing cliffs, islands, and fishing villages that have been simultaneously shaped and battered by the ocean for millennia. The Irish landscape is most itself when it is wet: grey Atlantic light on green fields divided by stone walls, the smell of peat smoke from a farmhouse chimney, a pub in a village of twenty houses that is full on a Tuesday night. These are the places that explain why the Irish diaspora worldwide maintains an emotional connection to a country most of them have never lived in.
1. The Cliffs of Moher
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The Cliffs of Moher rise 214 metres above the Atlantic for eight kilometres along the Clare coast. They are the most visited natural attraction in Ireland and worth every visitor. The official viewing area has been developed with restraint — the visitor centre is built into the hillside and largely invisible from the cliffs. Walk south from the main viewing point along the cliff edge path, away from the crowds, and within fifteen minutes the cliffs are largely empty. The best light is in the late afternoon when the sun is over the Atlantic and the cliff faces turn amber.
2. The Aran Islands
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The three Aran Islands — Inis Mór, Inis Meáin, and Inis Oírr — sit at the mouth of Galway Bay, 45 minutes by ferry from Rossaveal. Inis Mór is the largest and has Dún Aonghasa, an Iron Age fort perched on a 90-metre cliff over the Atlantic with no protective railing between visitors and the edge. The island has no trees, no traffic lights, and a road network navigable by bicycle in a day. Inis Meáin is the quietest and least visited; the knitwear made there — the original Aran sweater — is genuinely handmade. The Irish spoken on the islands is one of the last naturally surviving dialects of the language.
3. Connemara
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Connemara is the landscape that appears in paintings and poetry as archetypal Ireland: bog land, quartzite mountains (the Twelve Bens), stone walls, and lakes so still in calm weather that they perfectly reflect the sky above. Kylemore Abbey, a Victorian neo-Gothic castle built on the edge of Pollacapall Lough, is photographed from the road by every passing vehicle. The village of Clifden is the unofficial capital, with good restaurants and the start of the Sky Road — a coastal loop drive with views over Clifden Bay that are among the finest on the west coast.
4. The Ring of Kerry
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The Ring of Kerry is a 179-kilometre loop around the Iveragh Peninsula that passes mountains, lakes, and Atlantic coastline. It is Ireland’s most driven tourist route and in summer the road is a convoy. Drive it anticlockwise (the tour buses go clockwise) and leave early. The Skellig Ring, a smaller loop off the main route via Portmagee, is quieter and has views of the Skellig islands — two rock pinnacles rising from the Atlantic with an Early Christian monastery at the top of the larger one, visited by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Skellig Michael boat trips depart from Portmagee and Cahersiveen and should be booked months in advance.
5. Galway City
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Galway is a university city with a street music tradition that makes the pedestrianised centre feel permanently festive. Shop Street and Quay Street have buskers at every corner from spring through autumn. The Saturday market in Churchyard Street is the best in the country for food — cheese, bread, smoked fish, hot food from a dozen different cuisines, all within fifty metres. The Galway International Arts Festival in July is the largest arts festival in Ireland. The Spanish Arch, the medieval Long Walk, and the Claddagh neighbourhood on the west bank of the Corrib are the historic anchors of the city.
6. The Burren
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The Burren in County Clare is one of the strangest landscapes in Europe: 250 square kilometres of exposed limestone pavement, cracked into flat sections called clints and grikes, with almost no soil and almost no trees. In the cracks between the limestone, Arctic, Alpine, and Mediterranean plants grow side by side in a combination found nowhere else on Earth. The Burren Perfumery at Carron and the Burren Smokehouse in Lisdoonvarna are the best places to engage with the local food and craft tradition. The Poulnabrone Dolmen — a portal tomb 5,500 years old — stands on the limestone plateau and is accessible from a small car park.
7. Killarney National Park
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Killarney National Park is Ireland’s oldest national park and covers the Lakes of Killarney and the mountains above them. Muckross House and its gardens, the Gap of Dunloe (a mountain pass best traversed by horse-drawn jaunting car or bicycle rather than car), and Torc Waterfall are the main attractions. The red deer herd — descendants of the native Irish elk — is the only surviving wild herd in Ireland. The town of Killarney has been a tourist destination since the 18th century and the infrastructure is accordingly well-developed; book accommodation in summer well in advance.
8. Dingle Peninsula
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The Dingle Peninsula is the most westerly point of Europe and the site of some of Ireland’s best preserved archaeological landscape: beehive huts (clocháns) built by early Christian monks without mortar that are still standing after 1,500 years, ogham stones inscribed with the earliest form of written Irish, and ring forts used continuously from the Iron Age to the medieval period. Dingle town has a permanent dolphin — Fungie — who has lived in the harbour since 1983, and the fish restaurants here serve some of the freshest seafood in Ireland. The Connor Pass above the town is the highest mountain pass in Ireland driveable by car.
Practical Information
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Renting a car is almost essential for the Wild Atlantic Way — the public transport connections between smaller towns and villages are limited and infrequent. Drive on the left. The roads in Connemara and Kerry are narrow; passing places require patience. Budget extra time for every journey — roads that look short on a map take longer than expected. The weather on the west coast is genuinely unpredictable; pack waterproofs regardless of forecast. The best travel months are June and September — July and August have the most visitors and the most reliable weather, but reliable is a relative term on the Atlantic coast of Ireland.
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