Clogherhead sits on the only high, rocky headland on the whole east coast between the Mourne Mountains and Howth – which is why this otherwise modest fishing village of around 2,100 people is worth a detour off the M1. The headland is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Special Area of Conservation, protected for its rare coastal heathland, and from the top you get the Cooley and Mourne Mountains to the north and Lambay Island to the south. The Irish name, Ceann Chlochair, simply means rocky headland.
If you only do one thing here, walk the headland. An informal path leaves the village and runs around the cliffs to the harbour at Port Oriel, about an hour at a gentle pace, with the option to drop down onto the beach and come back along the sand at low tide. The honest catch: the trail is unsurfaced grass along the cliff edge and it turns to a bog after heavy rain, so this is a walking-boots outing, not a flip-flops one. Most people start from the big car park near the harbour.
Port Oriel harbour
Port Oriel, built in 1885, is the largest fishing port in the north-east of Ireland, and it is the real heart of the place. This is a working harbour rather than a tarted-up marina – nets, ice, early-morning landings – so it reads as authentic rather than picturesque, and the local advice is to use the free car park and keep off the quays where boats are working. From here you can launch a kayak or take a boat trip around the headland past Redman’s Cave and the statue of Our Lady set into the rocks. Celtic Adventures run kayak hire and trips from the Little Strand.
The reward at the end of the walk is the food. The chip van on the pier has a fair claim to the best fish and chips in Louth, and there are public toilets at both the pier and the beach. Back at the strand, the Beach Hut does coffee, cake and ice cream on the sand, and the Fisherman’s Catch sells fresh fish off the pier.
The beach and watersports
The Little Strand is a Blue Flag beach – a white-sand stretch backed by protected dunes, lifeguard-patrolled through the summer bathing season, with the patrol times posted on the noticeboard at the beach. It is sandy and gently sloping, a genuinely good spot for a swim, though the rocks at the northern end sit outside the flagged area and partly submerge at high tide, so stay within the lifeguarded zone.
The council-run Neptune Watersports Centre operates from the beach, offering surfing, kayaking, sailing, climbing and archery, and is used by groups and school trips through Celtic Adventures. Opening hours change with the season, so book ahead in the school holidays.
Geology, film and lore
The headland is the point where the Iapetus Suture – the seam where two ancient continents collided and closed an ocean hundreds of millions of years ago – reaches Ireland’s east coast. That makes it internationally significant to geologists; for everyone else it explains the dramatic Silurian rock you are standing on.
The harbour’s looks have drawn film crews more than once: Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford filmed The Devil’s Own (1997) at Port Oriel, Cillian Murphy and company shot Perrier’s Bounty (2008) here, and Rock Hudson came for Captain Lightfoot back in 1955. Redman’s Cave takes its name from a Captain Redman, said to have come ashore here for shelter after his ship was wrecked off the coast. An RNLI lifeboat has been stationed in the village for over a century, and the station, named for its boat the Doris Bleasdale, can be visited.
Getting there and parking
Clogherhead is about 70 km north of Dublin, a 15-minute drive (12 km) north-east of Drogheda, 30 minutes south of Dundalk, and roughly 45 minutes from Dublin Airport. From the M1, follow the coastal roads in to the village. Without a car, Bus Éireann route 168 connects Clogherhead to Drogheda via Termonfeckin and Baltray.
Parking is free, both at the large car park opposite the beach and at Port Oriel, but both fill on summer weekends and during the August Seafood Rocks festival – arrive early. Bring a windproof layer whatever the forecast; the headland catches the sea breeze year-round.