Overview
Killilagh (Irish: Cill Aidhleach) is the civil parish that contains Doolin, so there’s no single ‘Killilagh’ to visit – it’s a scatter of free, open heritage sites across the headlands north of the village, between the schist cliffs of the Cliffs of Moher and the limestone of the Burren. You can walk most of them in a morning.
If you only do one, make it Killilagh Church and its graveyard. The court tomb at Teergonean is the older site and the quarries are the better story, but the church packs the most into one stop: medieval stonework, a violent history, and an ongoing rescue by local volunteers.
Killilagh Church
The ruins beside the road from Doolin to the sea were built in 1470, though a church almost certainly stood here earlier – Killilagh was one of the wealthiest and most populous parishes in the diocese of Kilfenora. In 1645 Cromwellian troops attacked it during Mass and set fire to the roof, making it one of the first casualties of the Parliamentarian conquest in Clare. A storm in 1903 brought down the eastern gable, 15th-century stonework and all, and for years the building was left to the weather. Since 2013 the Save Killilagh Church group and Doolin Heritage have stabilised it and restored the side chapel.
The graveyard around it was used for burials from 1860 to 1985 and now draws people back from across the world tracing Clare ancestors; a local survey has recorded the headstone inscriptions. Two odder details reward a wander: the MacNamara vault beside the church was pressed into use as a temporary jail during the Troubles, and a large rock nearby carries the name Carrig na Luinge Bui, the ‘Rock of the Yellow Ship’.
Teergonean court tomb and the axe factory
The court tomb at Teergonean sits in a hollow at the end of a farm road off the one opposite McDermott’s pub in Roadford. It dates to around 3000 BC and once had two large burial chambers entered through a forecourt; don’t expect a tidy outline – only four stones of that forecourt still stand, with the stumps of others detectable in the grass. The walk out has a view down to the sea.
Where the River Aille meets the sea near Fisher Street, southeast of Doolin Harbour, is the so-called Doolin axe factory, a spot where stone tools were knapped in the Neolithic or possibly even earlier, in the Mesolithic. Along the first few hundred metres of the cliff path out of Doolin, look left for a low circular ring barrow. One of the ring cairns near Doolin is, by local tradition, the place where 170 survivors of a wrecked Armada ship were hanged in 1588.
Quarries, flagstone and a phosphate mine
The reason half the parish is scarred with old workings is the flagstone. Four quarries – Doonagore, Moher, Lough and Caherbana – employed over 500 men at their height, and the stone left Clare for a long way: it paved London streets, floored the Royal Mint, and lined the Redemptorist Church in Belfast. In the 1930s and 40s an open-cast phosphate mine near Doolin took out about 85,000 tons of ore; its owner later fought a 41-day court case for compensation. You can still trace the quarry tracks across the hillsides.
Castles
The most photographed is Doonagore Castle, the round tower on the steep road up to the Cliffs of Moher. The current structure is a 1970s reconstruction built to the old plans; it’s a private house, so this one is for the camera, not the interior. Inland, Doonmacfelim Castle and Ballinalacken Castle stand as quieter ruins.
Practical information
- Entry: every site is free and accessible year-round; there are no ticket offices or set hours.
- Parking: free at Doolin Harbour, with roadside bays near the church ruins.
- On foot: wear sturdy shoes – the paths cross uneven limestone and farm tracks, and the coast is exposed even in summer. No facilities at the ruins; Doolin village has cafés, pubs and toilets within a few minutes.
- Cliffs of Moher Coastal Walk: large sections remain closed for safety as of 2026, including roughly 5.5 km between Doolin and Hag’s Head shut since August 2024. Only the short surfaced routes near the visitor centre and the open ends are walkable, and there are no barriers on the cliff edge – stick to the paved path.
- Getting there: by car, the N67 and R478 bring you in from Galway (about 75 km, 1.5 hours). Bus Éireann route 350 runs Ennis to Doolin seasonally. Doolin Harbour is also the ferry port for the Aran Islands.