Situated on Ireland’s sweeping and rugged west coast, looking out across the cold Atlantic ocean, Clare is a stunning and captivating county that showcases some of the most unique parts of the Irish countryside.
With the sea as a dramatic background, constantly battering the coastline and the country’s world-renowned cliffs, Clare offers everything a holidaymaker to Ireland could want, with the very achievable feat of surfing in the morning swells followed by an otherworldly experience in the rocks. The landscape is occasionally impressively bleak and hard, but the county town’s welcome one and all with an authentic Irish charm and year-round sessions with traditional music and warming dinners. Seeing your rain-soaked clothes steaming off beside a turf fire while waiting for your pint to settle might well be the start of a perfect getaway.
Here are our top five things to do in Clare:
5: Aillwee Cave
[Flickr/Wojtek Piatek]
This cave offers much to visitors, with guided tours of the caverns, over the bridged chasms, marvelling at the intricate geological formations and the rumble of the impressive waterfall. There are even the hibernation chambers of brown bears, which have been extinct in Ireland for thousands of years, though a few bones were left perfectly preserved in the environment of the cave.
The cave complex also includes Europe’s biggest rock garden, as well as woodlands where hazelnuts are farmed. Children might also enjoy the Birds of Prey educational centre, which houses one of the most varied collections of birds of prey on the island, and they can be viewed up close and in free flight.
4: Cliffs of Moher
[Flickr/Giuseppe Milo]
Arguably the most alluring natural feature on the entire island of Ireland, the world-famous cliffs have brought many tourists flocking to Clare, and chances are that a visit on any day will see you mobbed by many other people keen to get a photo.
The cliffs shoot up to a height of 203m above the sea, in an almost vertical line, their edge ending and leading to a long fall into the unforgiving Atlantic below. The cliffs are made of a number of limestone heads, and, with a bit of luck, on a clear day the view can stretch as far as the Aran Islands and the Connemara hills. The visitors centre is impressively hidden into the landscape, and reveals much about the flora and fauna that share the cliffs.
3: The Burren
[Flickr/Heaton Johnson]
Stretching all around you like the surface of an alien planet, the Burren is an awe-inspiring site. Rocky, craggy, and with a wicked wind waiting to whip the life back into you, the limestone flats do come from another world, shaped beneath ancient seas before being forced onto the Irish coast by the violent crunching and crushing of the earth.
And yet, for something so grey and seemingly lifeless, incredible wildflowers bloom in the springtime, adding bold dashes of colour that dot the 560 square kilometres. There is no shortage of life to see in the villages that surround the landscape, with Doolin’s music a particular highlight.
2: Bunratty Castle & Folk Park
The stout and square Bunratty Castle is the last man standing of a number of edifices that have been edged out of this location on the shores of the River Ratty. The Vikings claimed in at the beginning of the last millennium, and the Normans has their say when Thomas de Clare took it in the 1270s. What remains today was first built in Medieval Ireland, and now it stands completely restored and furnished in some of the finest remaining examples of furniture, wall hangings, and paintings from the 14th to 17th centuries.
Beside the castle lies the folk park, which is littered with traditional Irish cottages showing what life was like in rural Ireland of yesteryear. A working blacksmith clanks burning orange irons into shape, weavers get to work on fabrics, and a post office, pub, and small café make for a charming stop.
1: Loop Head Lighthouse
Perched on Clare’s southernmost point, Loop Head Lighthouse, still working today with its impressive Fresnel lens, offers incredible views of the sea and nearby cliffs. Mt Brandon, the Aran Islands, and Galway Bay can all be seen from the head, but the site is as much a feast for the ears as the eyes; tourists cannot escape the haunting bird cries, as guillemots and razorbills soar on the coastal breeze, nesting in the rocky cliffs.
On Tuesday evenings at 6pm, travel writer Manchán Magan takes George Hook around the world from the comfort of Newstalk's Dublin studios. You can listen back to the podcast of this week's segment below:
