IrelandWest.ie — Western Ireland Tourism & Regional Info (original) (raw)

Tourism and regional info for the Atlantic side of Ireland, where distances look small on a map and still somehow take your whole day.

Speaking of surprises… So, the real reason I went back to Ireland. The Irish west coast (if you can call it that) is one of the world’s greatest travel destination sleeping on your couch. And I don’t get it. I just don’t. The region of Connacht and especially the three provinces Galway, Mayo, and Sligo/Donegal are not your typical Ireland. Not the Ireland you see in the postcards (though there is plenty of that too), but something rougher. The Atlantic hits the coast full force here, the weather changes every 20 minutes, and you’ll find small towns clinging to old traditions while the rest of the country zooms forward at a mad pace.

Let me start with the Galway city as your jumping off point. A typical college town mixed with all night traditional music sessions coming from every second pub on the street (you can’t walk through the Latin Quarter on a Friday night without bumping into a fiddler). I’ll get into the area around Galway proper later, but head west, the real gem is just outside, Connemara. This is where the landscape changes to the proper madness: bogland stretching into the distance, mountains thrown haphazardly into the sky, those amazing stone walls dividing fields that contain more rock than soil. The light is weird out here too (photographers lose their minds) because you are that exposed to the ocean and as such clouds zoom across the sky making everything go gold, then grey, then gold again.

Let’s talk Cliffs of Moher…Ok, everyone goes here because well duh it’s iconic. BUT it’s also for good reason even if you are here rolling your eyes at the tour buses every second. Standing at the edge of that chasm dropping into the Atlantic it is one of those places that actually lives up to the hype. So yes, go, but do it early or late in the day to avoid the tourist rush. From there you can head your way up the coast and through the Burren which is a truly otherworldly lunar landscape of limestone pavements where somehow wildflowers grow in the cracks and prehistoric monuments sit around like it’s no big deal. It’s that kind of place that makes you wonder “wait how old is this place ACTUALLY” and you realise, humans have been playing around here for 5000+ years.

Up near Ballycastle is a little-known gem of a place, Céide Fields. If you are an ancient history nerd (I am, hi, if you’re reading this and you know me we have plenty to talk about), then Céide Fields is one of the most fascinating places you will visit in Ireland. Neolithic field systems, tens of thousands of years old, buried and preserved under blanket bog. The field systems predate Stonehenge by 2,000 years and yet remained lost to time until the mid-20th century. The Centre does a great job in walking you through what you are seeing; without the interpretation, it is bog and rocks. It is only through understanding what you are looking at that you can take in the realisation that people were actually farming this land when the Egyptian pyramids were not even a gleam in Ramses the Great’s eye.

Sligo…now, when you head north up into Sligo you start to enter Yeats country and if you go to the wildest parts of the region (which I will get to) I can completely understand how that guy wrote so much morose poetry. Benbulben mountain is this flat-topped freak formation that looms over the landscape, the beaches around Strandhill are proper surf beaches (yes, people surf in Ireland and yes, the water is still freezing), and you have this whole area dotted with ancient sites and megalithic monuments EVERYWHERE (megalithic tombs, stone circles, stuff older than the pyramids). It is not coy about its past in the slightest in the least frustrating way. Just walk a few hundred meters off the beaten path and you’ll stumble across a 4000-year-old burial chamber with…one small sign.

Donegal. I didn’t actually make it up this far on this particular trip but it was close and Donegal is where I will be headed next. It’s the wild card in the bunch because you could argue that it’s northwest and not west at all but it does spill over into the area and I think it’s not unfair to say that some of the most dramatic coastline in the country is up here. The Slieve League cliffs for example are taller than the Moher but so, so much less touristy. I mean you can pretty much walk right up to the edge with zero barriers in place which is either completely liberating or makes you want to cry based on your personality. The entire county has a remote feel to it, Gaeltacht regions where Irish is still the first language, tiny villages that just don’t give a shit, roads that snake for miles and miles. It’s not a convenience, but honestly, that’s the point.

Weather. All you can really do is come to terms with the fact that it’s not going to be nice very often. Layers, layering, waterproofs EVERYTHING. You can’t plan your days around sunshine because you will end up disappointed. But when it IS nice (and trust me, it WILL be, even if for only an hour) the whole region glows. The greens are greener, the waters bluer and you will finally understand what the fuss is all about.

Food scene has come into its own for sure, at least around Galway and in the larger towns. Lots of local seafood, of course, but there’s artisan producers doing all sorts of cheese and smoked fish and great craft beer popping up everywhere and farms-to-table joints that aren’t just doing it for the Insta points. You’re not in Dublin so your expectations should adjust accordingly BUT you will not starve and you may well be pleasantly surprised.

Pub culture, as in most of Ireland, is still the main nightlife scene, but take it from someone who has been to Mayo a lot. There are some real gems of traditional pubs and some that are…pigs. In this way, pubs vary widely, and again, ask the locals before heading to a pub or hotel you have heard is a local gem. Because more often than not, they aren’t.