The lough
You don’t need a licence to fish for wild brown trout on Lough Corrib, and Corr na Móna’s pier is one of the handier places to put a boat on it. The village – Irish-speaking, and known to most visitors as Cornamona – sits on the north shore of the lough in Joyce Country, County Galway, with the Maam Valley rising to the west. Corr na Móna is the only official name; the anglicised Cornamona has no legal standing, though it’s what you’ll see on most signs and maps. It’s a small place – a shop (Lowry’s), a pub (Tigh Mháille), a playground, a community centre and the pier – and it works best as a base for the water and the hills rather than a destination in itself.
If you’ve only twenty minutes and no rod, drive the kilometre south-west on the R345 to the Corr na Móna viewpoint, on the shore of a small bay, for the long view across Lough Corrib and its scatter of islands.
Fishing on Lough Corrib
Lough Corrib is one of Europe’s great wild brown trout fisheries, and the pier gives direct access. The famous window is the mayfly hatch in May, when the surface comes alive with feeding fish, but trout come to wet flies, buzzers and dapping from spring through autumn. Salmon and sea trout run the inlets and river mouths too. Brown trout on the lough need no licence or permit in the Republic; salmon and sea trout need a state licence from Inland Fisheries Ireland. If you don’t know the water, a day with a local ghillie and a traditional lough boat is money well spent – reading the wind and the drift on a lake this size is a skill, and it’s the difference between a blank day and a good one.
The lime kiln and other landmarks
The village’s most visible relic is the Cornamona lime kiln, built around 1800 and standing on a hillock above the houses – one of the better-preserved kilns in Galway, its circular form, conical top and arched base still clear from the road. Quicklime from kilns like it sweetened acidic soils, went into mortar and made whitewash: the everyday chemistry of rural life before bagged fertiliser. It sits on private land, so view it from the public road rather than climbing to it. Down at the river, Cornamona Bridge is an early 19th-century crossing attributed to the Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo, who laid out much of Connemara’s road network. And in the village itself there’s a rock outcrop of Dalradian marble – a small geological signature of the wider Joyce Country and Western Lakes Geopark that the area belongs to.
Walking
Corr na Móna sits at one end of the Sean Bóthar Walk, an old road route that runs along the lake shore. For a shorter leg-stretch, the nearby summit of Mount Gable (Benlevy) is a straightforward climb with views over both Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. More serious hillwalkers use the village as a jumping-off point for the Maumturks – operators like Walk Connemara run guided multi-day treks over peaks like Maumeen and Binn idir an Dá Log, across peat bog and quartzite ridge, which want sturdy boots and booking ahead.
Culture and community
The pub is the social centre, and traditional sessions – fiddle, box, bodhrán – fill the odd evening; Irish is the language of the place and visitors are taken as they come. Cornamona had its film moment as a main location for Foscadh (2021), the award-winning Irish-language feature about Gaeltacht life. The local secondary school is Coláiste Naomh Feichín. Among the village’s better-known names are the former Ireland rugby international Mick Molloy and the TD Éamon Ó Cuív. If you want the place at its busiest, come in June for the Cornamona 50-mile charity cycle.
Getting there and practical information
Cornamona is signposted north from Maam Cross, on narrow roads with single-track stretches typical of rural Galway, so take it steady. There’s parking near the pier and community centre. Public transport is thin: there’s no direct bus to Galway, and services route through a change at An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe), so a car is by far the easiest way in.
- Fishing – no licence for brown trout on Lough Corrib; salmon and sea trout need a state licence from Inland Fisheries Ireland.
- Guided walks – contact local operators ahead for the off-trail mountain routes; rates and dates vary by season.
- Accommodation – the village has little of its own, so most visitors stay in Clonbur, Leenane or Letterfrack.
Nearby
- Lough Nafooey – a glacial lake in the next valley west, with a sandy shore and red volcanic rock.
- Clonbur – native woodland and limestone pavement between Corrib and Mask, near Caisleán na Circe, the island castle tied to Grace O’Malley.
- Connemara National Park – further south, protecting the Twelve Bens, megalithic tombs and blanket bog.
- An Spidéal – another Gaeltacht village, on Galway Bay, known for its craft workshops.
Time a visit for the mayfly in May and the lough does the rest: the trout come up, and every boat on the water will be out after the same rising fish.