Things to Do in County Galway

More about County Galway

Where to base yourself

Almost everyone starts in Galway City, and for a short trip that is right: you can walk to everything, the ferries and buses west leave from here, and it is the only place in the county with real choice for dinner. The catch is the last week of July, when the Races and the arts festival between them fill every bed and double the rates — if those dates are yours, book months out or stay outside town. Barna and An Spidéal on the coast road are the easy alternatives, twenty and thirty minutes out with the sea in front of them.

If Connemara is the reason you came, move west and sleep there instead. Clifden is the hub — hotels, hostels, guesthouses, and everything from the Sky Road to Kylemore inside forty minutes. Roundstone is smaller and better placed for the beaches, Oughterard suits anglers on Lough Corrib, and Cleggan is where you stay if you are catching the early boat. In the south of the county Kinvara and Gort put you on the Burren’s edge for a fraction of city prices. Connemara accommodation is thin and it goes early: July and August, and any bank holiday weekend, need to be booked well in advance.

Out to the islands

The Aran ferries run from Ros a’ Mhíl, about 40 minutes west of the city, with a bus connection from Galway; there are also sailings from Doolin in Clare in season. A day trip to Inis Mór works, but you will spend a lot of it moving — staying a night is what changes the Aran Islands from a sight into a place. Bikes are the sensible way around, Kilmurvey Beach is the swimming strand, and on Inis Oírr the sunken church of St Caomhán and the tower at Dún Formna fill an afternoon on foot.

North of Clifden, the boat from Cleggan takes about half an hour to Inishbofin, which has no through traffic to speak of, three good loop walks and a couple of bars with music. Nearer to hand, Omey Island off Claddaghduff can be walked to across the strand at low water — check the tide table before you set out, and do not linger.

Connemara

The mountains are the spine of it. Diamond Hill at Letterfrack is the one climb most visitors do: boardwalk and stone steps, two to three hours for the upper loop, and no charge for the park itself. The bigger Twelve Bens behind it are unmarked quartzite with loose ground and fast weather, for experienced hillwalkers only. Between them, the old pilgrim path over Maumeen Pass is a short, steep walk to a chapel and holy well with an outsized view.

For driving, the Sky Road loop west of Clifden takes an hour with stops and is best late in the day; the Maam Valley and the shore of Lough Nafooey are quieter and just as good. Derrigimlagh, on the bog south of Clifden, has a looped boardwalk trail linking the ruins of the Marconi transatlantic station and the spot where Alcock and Brown crash-landed in 1919.

The beaches are the surprise. Dogs Bay and Gurteen Bay sit back to back on a sandy isthmus near Roundstone, their sand made of crushed shell rather than quartz, and the water is clear and very cold. Further east, the coral strand at Carraroe is the same idea in miniature, and Rusheen Bay at Barna is the sheltered spot for windsurfing and paddleboarding lessons.

The east of the county

East Galway gets skipped, which keeps it cheap and empty. Coole Park near Gort was Lady Gregory’s estate; the house is gone but the woods, the turlough and the autograph tree carved with Yeats’s and Shaw’s initials are all still there, and the grounds open longer hours than the visitor centre. Dunguaire Castle on the water at Kinvara is the photograph everyone takes on the way to the Burren, and Aughnanure Castle, an O’Flaherty tower house near Oughterard, is the better one to actually go inside — an OPW site with seasonal opening, so check before driving out.

Further in again, Ballinasloe holds its horse fair in early October, one of Europe’s oldest and worth timing a trip around if that is your thing, and the 1911 Portumna Swing Bridge still spans the Shannon at the Tipperary border.

When it rains

It will. Galway City Museum beside the Spanish Arch is free and takes an hour, Dan O’Hara’s Homestead on the Clifden road covers pre-Famine Connemara life indoors and out, and the walled garden and grounds at Kylemore Abbey are ticketed but hold up in weather, with a shuttle bus between the abbey and the garden.