GREAT DRIVES CLIFDEN TO CASHEL:THE SOUTHWESTERN corner of Connemara contains a remarkable landscape and one that is unique in Ireland. Its rocky ground holds an abundance of small lakes, giving a terrain that leaves little space for human habitation.
The roads that exist in this part of Ireland undulate as they twist and turn around the natural obstacles nature placed in the way of the road-makers. Yet, despite these difficulties, there is one road that for me provides a journey of discovery across this unique landscape. That route is from Clifden to Cashel via Ballyconneely and Roundstone.
Clifden, the capital of Connemara, is a good place to start any journey. The town, whose Irish name, “An Clochán” translates as “The Stepping Stones”, is beautifully set at the foot of the Twelve Bens that rise to its east.
Take the R341 out of Clifden heading south, and before long you pass the turn to the northwest that leads to the monument erected in 1959 to commemorate the “Irish meadow” where Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown crash-landed their converted Vickers Vimy bomber after their epic first flight across the Atlantic in 1919.
Before long the road turns southwest and runs along the shoreline of Mannin Bay as far as the small village of Ballyconneely, with its coral strand.
Incidently, a local told me that this road had once been given the name the “brandy and soda” road, owing to the exhilarating quality of the sea air in the district. I can’t attest to this particular quality but can confirm a continuance of the wet and misty weather that seems to have followed us on our travels this year.
A feature of this area is the many fine, deserted beaches, and you could do worse that to divert from the route to explore the peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic from Ballyconneely, as it seems to have an abundance of such beaches.
Returning to the R341 on leaving Ballyconneely, the road swings roughly southeast as it skirts Ballyconneely Bay. Offshore are visible many rocks that must have struck fear into the hearts of those sailing these waters in times gone by.
The road continues to follow the coast, swinging towards the east as it nears the pretty holiday village of Roundstone. However, about 3km before Roundstone, a small sign points the way to Dog’s Bay, a diversion not to be missed under any circumstances.
Dog’s Bay is quite simply the perfect bay, semi-circular in shape, with white sand, and washed by the blue waters of the Atlantic. It is a place that, once discovered, stays in your mind, as it has in mine for many years since first finding it while exploring Connemara in my first car, an Austin-Healey Sprite.
North of Dog’s Bay, and west of Roundstone, rises Errisbeg, some 300m high.
Although a holiday centre, Roundstone remains a working fishing village. Its Irish name is “Cloch na Rón” – “the Stone of the Seals”. From here the R341 swings north, hugging the shoreline of the western edge of Bertraghboy Bay, eventually joining the R342 at Toombeola.
At this point follow the R342 as it twists its way along the shoreline and heads southeast to the tiny village of Cashel, at the end of our exploration and south of Cashel Hill, some 310m high.
I would suggest that you allow plenty of time to drive this route and take the opportunity to explore the many diversions off it. It’s a landscape that surprises and delights with its many beaches on the very edge of the wild Atlantic.