Connemara looks small on a map and is not. It is roughly 3,000 square kilometres of bog, quartzite mountain and drowned coastline, and the roads run around the hills rather than through them. Clifden to Leenane is 40 minutes. Clifden to Roundstone is 25. Cleggan to the Inagh Valley is the better part of an hour. Pick the wrong village and you will spend the trip driving the N59 back and forth.
This is the deeper cut. If you are still deciding between the city and the west, start with where to stay in Galway, which covers Galway city, Salthill and the county as a whole. What follows assumes you have already decided that Connemara is where you want to sleep.
Clifden: the hub, and the safe default
About 1,250 people, the largest town in the region by a distance, and the only place with a proper choice of restaurants, shops and fuel. The 16 km Sky Road loop climbs straight out of it, Derrigimlagh bog and its Marconi and Alcock and Brown trail sit six kilometres south, and Diamond Hill is twenty minutes north.
Take it if you want convenience, a first visit, or a base you can eat in seven nights running. The trade-off is that Clifden is where the coaches stop, and in July and August the main street feels it. The Clifden Arts Festival in September fills the town for a week.
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Leenane and Killary: the fjord, and the walkers’ end
Leenane sits at the head of Killary, a 16 km sea inlet that drops past 45 metres in the middle and marks the Galway and Mayo border. The village is genuinely small, a couple of pubs, cafés, a post office and a community centre, hemmed in by the Maumturks and Devilsmother to the south and the sandstone bulk of Mweelrea across the water. Within a few hundred metres of the shore the ground shifts through farmland, blanket bog, old woodland and seashore.
Base here if you are walking. The Western Way runs through, the Maumturks rise directly behind, and the Delphi valley and Mweelrea are a short drive north. The 90-minute fjord cruise leaves from Nancy’s Point, two kilometres west, from March to October, passing mussel rafts and salmon cages with dolphins sometimes at the mouth.
The trade-offs. Out of season the village is close to empty, and in July and August you share it with everyone driving the N59 between Connemara and Westport. There are only a handful of places to eat. This is also the wettest, most enclosed corner of the region, which is atmospheric on day one and wearing by day four if the cloud sits on the tops. Come here for the mountains, not for a rainy-day plan.
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Renvyle: the quiet peninsula
Rinn Mhaoile, the “bald peninsula”, holds the villages of Tully and Tully Cross and is bookended by two of the calmest natural harbours on the coast, Derryinver Quay and Ballinakill Bay. Clifden is about 19 km south. The painter Augustus John called it the most beautiful landscape in the world, and it is the part of Connemara that the tour buses miss.
Base here if you want beaches without crowds. The White Strand to Glassilaun walk is a flat three-kilometre link between two Green Coast beaches, easy with children. Tully Mountain is a short, pathless 356 m climb with a view running from the Twelve Bens to Croagh Patrick and out to Inishbofin. Renvyle House, which Oliver St John Gogarty bought in 1917, watched burn in the Civil War in 1923 and rebuilt, is the peninsula’s landmark hotel and the reason many people know the name.
The trade-offs. There is no regular bus, so a car is not optional. Beaches have small car parks, about a dozen spaces at Renvyle Beach, and the lay-bys fill fast in summer. Eating options are thin outside the hotels, so check what is open in the village before you plan an evening around it.
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Cleggan, and the case for a night on Inishbofin
Cleggan is a working fishing village whose stone pier is the mainland departure point for the Inishbofin and Inishturk ferries. Sellerna Beach, a broad, gently shelving strand, is a few minutes’ walk away, with the Knockbrack court tomb on the hill above it. Parking at the pier costs roughly €5 a day and the spaces go by mid-morning in summer.
The stronger recommendation is to keep going. Inishbofin is 10 km out, about 180 people, and cars stay on the mainland: it was Ireland’s first Eco Certified island and the working assumption is that you swap the engine for a bike. Three waymarked loops run from the pier, the 8 km Westquarter loop out to the blowholes and Trá Gheal, the 8 km Cloonamore loop past St Colman’s ruins, and the 5 km Middlequarter loop with views to Achill and the Twelve Bens. Cromwell’s star-shaped barracks can be walked out to on the ebb tide.
Base here if you want the version of Connemara that empties out at five o’clock, when the day boats leave. For its size the island eats and drinks unusually well, and trad sessions run year-round rather than just in summer.
The trade-offs. The ferry runs three times a day in summer and once a day in winter, a crossing of 30 to 40 minutes, and it is weather-dependent, so do not book an overnight for the day before a flight. Beds are limited and need booking ahead in peak season, as does the ferry itself. Bring what you need: this is an island of 180 people, not a resort.
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Ballynahinch, Recess and Cashel Bay: the inland option
Away from the coast road, the country between Recess and Cashel is woodland, river and lake under the Twelve Bens, and it is where Connemara stops being a drive and starts being a place you sit still in. Ballynahinch Castle, a Relais & Châteaux house on a big estate, has salmon and sea trout fishing from 72 stone piers built along the river by a maharaja who once owned the place, walled gardens and forest trails. Ballynahinch Lake runs about four kilometres below Benlettery. One of the three open sections of the Connemara Greenway starts here, a free, car-free walk or cycle on the old Galway to Clifden railway line.
South on the R340, Cashel sits at the head of Bertraghboy Bay under Cashel Hill, which rises over 1,000 feet straight off the water. Charles de Gaulle spent two weeks at Cashel House after resigning the French presidency in 1969, which tells you the kind of quiet the place trades on.
Base here if you fish, or you want a country-house stay with the mountains out the window rather than a village street.
The trade-offs. This is the priciest corner of Connemara and there is no village life to speak of: no shops, no pubs within walking distance of most of it, and you will drive to Clifden or Roundstone for anything you forgot. Excellent for two nights of doing very little, frustrating if you wanted somewhere to wander in the evening.
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Roundstone: honest advice about the season
Roundstone is the prettiest village in Connemara and the beaches at Dog’s Bay and Gurteen are the best in the region, twin white strands of crushed seashell rather than mineral sand. That is exactly the problem in July and August. Dog’s Bay has almost no parking and fills early, the village is small, and the Roundstone Regatta week takes the whole place over.
Base here if you can come in May, June or September. Staying in the village means you walk to the beaches rather than fight for a space, which flips the busiest thing about Roundstone into its main advantage. Errisbeg, the 300 m hill directly behind the village, gives you Dog’s Bay, Gurteen, the Twelve Bens and the Aran Islands from the top on a clear day, over open bog with no marked path.
The trade-offs. In high summer, book somewhere else and visit for the day, early. Roundstone is also further from Connemara National Park than the northern villages, so it suits a beach trip more than a walking one.
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Maam Cross, the Maam valley and Joyce Country: the cheap, eastern side
Maam Cross is a crossroads in the middle of Connemara, an Teach Dóite, “the burned house”, after a lodge that burned nearby around 1839. Its old railway station, opened in 1895 and closed in 1935, is being restored track by track by volunteers, and the weekly mart and the October fair still bring farmers down off the hills.
Around it, the R336 runs through the Maam valley between the Maumturks and Lough Corrib, in Joyce Country, past the ruined White O’ Morn cottage from The Quiet Man and the old pilgrim pass at Mámean. East again are the Gaeltacht lake villages of Cornamona and Clonbur, the latter on the neck of land between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask.
Base here if you are walking the Maumturks, fishing Corrib, or watching the budget. This is the least expensive part of Connemara to sleep in and the least visited.
The trade-offs. You are inland: no beaches, no Atlantic, and Clifden is 40 minutes west. The Maumturks are pathless quartzite and not a casual afternoon out. Facilities are sparse enough that you should check where you are eating before you arrive.
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The practical summary
- First visit, two or three nights: Clifden.
- Walking: Letterfrack for Diamond Hill, Leenane for Killary and the Western Way, Maam Cross for the Maumturks.
- Beaches with children: Renvyle out of habit, Roundstone out of season.
- Doing nothing well: Ballynahinch and Cashel.
- The best single night: Inishbofin, weather permitting.
- Without a car: Clifden, plus the Citylink connection to the Cleggan ferry.
Ferry sailings, bus connections and parking charges change with the season. Check the operator before you build a day around them, and never plan a Connemara itinerary that has no wet-weather version.
