Inside MORE Rediscover the Wild Atlantic Way
Six years ago, Philip Nolan drove the length of the entire island on the newly christened Wild Atlantic Way. As the nation contemplates a summer of staycations, our writer revisits the splendour of that 2,500km driving holiday.
It is late evening and I’m looking down the Conor Pass that runs between Castlegregory and Dingle on the peninsula. The sky is gunmetal, save for a few patches where shards of sunlight are breaking through, dappling the valley like spotlights, picking out golden lakes in the middle of richly umber bogland. It is jawdroppingly beautiful.
As I negotiate the top of the pass, driving a surefooted BMW X5 borrowed for the trip, on a road so narrow it would send the heart crossways in you, I disappear into the cloud, only to emerge on the downward slope with Dingle sparkling in the foreground and the Ring of Kerry in the distance. It should be the highlight of the journey so far, but there have been so many, it’s hard to call.
It started in Derry on a drizzly Saturday morning. As you leave the city and head for the Inishowen peninsula, a large sign announces that you have started the Wild Atlantic Way; thereafter, your markers are small signs with stylised WAW markers cleverly designed to look like cresting waves.
And the great thing is, there are lots of them, so you never get lost. In a country where signposting is quirky at best and often non-existent, this is remarkably reassuring. Importantly, each also is followed by an (N) or an (S) because, of course, you can drive the route either way, from north to south, as I am doing, or vice versa.
Donegal proves to be lovely. It is not a county I’m overly familiar with, and the scenery here in Inishowen, and on the Fanad peninsula, is spectacular. Yes, there are many uniformly white holiday homes dotted around, but you soon stop seeing them. Instead, the draw is crescent beaches like rich golden syrup that seem to run forever, kissed by the whitecaps of azure seas.
I stay the first night at Arnolds in Dunfanaghy, a lovely family-run hotel overlooking the bay that separates it from Horn Head. Next day, I pass through towns with softly musical names – Falcarragh, Kinscasslagh, Bunbeg, Ardara, Glencoumbkille. The highlight, though, is the Slieve League cliffs, rising 598m and among the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Don’t be fooled by the lower car park; if you open the gate, you can drive to the summit viewing point and save yourself a 2km walk.
From there, I make my way to Markree Castle in Collooney, Co. Sligo. William Butler Yeats was a regular visitor here and I stay in the room he usually used, overlooking the castle’s formal gardens (en route, I had stopped at Drumcliff to see his grave in the old country churchyard, and its famous inscription: ‘Cast a cold eye, on life, on death, Horseman, pass by!’). There’s an air of gentility about Markree that borders on the romantic and I’m regretting that I have to press on.
The third day starts with a seaweed bath at the famous Kilcullen’s in Enniscrone. First, I have to sit for while in a Turkish bath. There’s a hole for my head but otherwise my whole body is bathed in steam. Then I lie for half an hour in the seaweed before taking a bracingly cold seawater shower. It is incredibly invigorating; every joint and muscle seems to have new life.
I stop briefly in Killala, a lively town often overlooked by Mayo devotees who flock to Westport instead, then drive to the Céide Fields, the most extensive Neolithic site in the world. The land here was walled off and farmed over 5,000 years ago, but the clearance of the forest on the site eventually led to it becoming bogland. That may have been bad for those who lived there but it means the old wall system was preserved forever, and the visitor centre offers a fascinating insight into how people lived 200 generations ago.
At this stage of the journey, the landscape is becoming a little harsher – and more rugged. I head out to Belmullet, then to Achill Island, and end the day by checking in to the Clew Bay Hotel in Westport before heading out to listen to live music in Matt Molloy’s and having a couple of well-earned pints of the black stuff.
I’m up early again the next day for what will be the longest drive of my trip. I drive out past the pilgrimage mountain of Croagh Patrick and on to Louisburg. From there, the route takes me through the haunting Doolough, scene of a Famine tragedy when many walking through the brooding valley died on the journey. It still feels beautiful and cursed, with an aura of vague menace that gives you the chills.
Much more welcoming are Leenane and Killary Harbour, the only fjord in Ireland. From there, I drive to Cleggan for lunch with an old
THE VALLEY STILL SEEMS BEAUTIFUL AND CURSED
friend who abandoned city life to live here a decade ago. The attraction is not hard to see, especially when we sit on the deck of Oliver’s for a crab salad lunch under blazing sunshine.
I take the famous Sky Road to Clifden, and continue through Roundstone, Spiddal and Galway before entering Co. Clare. The route takes me around Black Head and Fanore as the sun is setting over the humpback shapes of the Aran Islands, shimmering in the low Atlantic swell.
I decide to stay in Doolin, where live music is the order of the night. I eat falafel in McDermott’s pub, then move to McGann’s across the road, where I’ve booked a room upstairs. When I pull back the curtains next morning, disaster. I can see for maybe 100m; fog has claimed the rest of the view and never relinquishes it for rest of the time I spend in Clare. There is no point stopping at the Cliffs of Moher and, in Lahinch, the bay is fuzzy and largely invisible. A trip to the top of the Loop Head lighthouse proves fruitless on two accounts – one, I’m terrified of heights and, two, it’s impossible to see anything anyway.
I make a bolt for Co. Kerry, and take the Killimer to Tarbert car ferry, then drive through Tralee and out the Dingle peninsula to the Conor Pass before bedding down at the Dingle Skellig Hotel, which has the best breakfast buffet I’ve seen, even in world-famous five-star hotels. Next day, I call to Inch Strand, then drive the Ring of Kerry before bedding down at the Park Hotel in Kenmare.
From here on, everything on the Wild Atlantic Way is new to me – the stunning Ring of Beara, the Disneyesque colours of the houses in the artists’ retreat of Allihies, the vertiginous cable car that takes tourists to Dursey Island, the busy fishing port of CastletownBearhaven, the picture-postcard beauty of Glengarriff, and then the long drive out to Mizen Head.
Having done Malin, I want to complete the set, but I am 15 minutes late. The visitor centre and cliff walk are closed and I will have to come back another day.
Instead, I make for Baltimore, where I stay at Casey’s Townhouse. It’s a house converted to small, selfcontained apartments and I wish, not for the first time on this trip, that I had more time to dawdle, because Baltimore is incredibly laidback and friendly.
Grim determination is driving me now, though, and I’m on the last lap. Next morning, I drive through those beautiful West Cork seaside villages so inextricably linked to the sea, in triumph and tragedies alike – Castletownshend, Unionhall, Glandore, Rosscarberry and Courtmacsherry.
And then suddenly, and finally, here I am in Kinsale. Eight days after setting out, I have reached the end of the Wild Atlantic Way. I have driven the spine of it but, because of time constraints, I have missed out on a couple of the sidebar trips around isolated peninsulas and coves. I have not taken trips to any of the islands – they seem worthy of another journey in the future.
As for the places I had been to before, well, they acquired a new freshness as the landscape changed all the way down the west coast. Arriving into them from the north made them feel different than when I drive to them from the east. This trip might have been six years ago, but as soon as it is safe and permitted to do so, I can’t wait to drive it all again. I set aside eight days back then, and it wasn’t enough. Take a fortnight and take your time!
For more information on the Wild Atlantic Way, including itineraries and points of interest, visit discoverireland.ie/Wild-AtlanticWay. For accommodation, see irishcountryhotels.com and manorhousehotels.com