Overview
The Sky Road is a 16 km (10 mi) loop out of Clifden that climbs to a clifftop viewpoint roughly 120 m above the Atlantic, then drops back to the coast. Drive it clockwise and the sea views sit on your left the whole way, opening out over Clifden Bay and its scatter of islands. Without stops the loop takes about an hour; with the walk out to Clifden Castle and a pause at the summit car park, give it a half-day. If you do just one thing, drive the Upper Road for the summit viewpoint and walk the farm track to Clifden Castle.
The route is free, open year-round, and forms one of the more rewarding stretches of the Wild Atlantic Way.
Upper road or lower road
The loop divides into two branches. The Upper Road is the one people mean by ‘the Sky Road’: it climbs the spine of the peninsula for the big, open views out to Turbot Island and Inishturk. The Lower Road hugs the shore, quieter, and gives access towards the Alcock and Brown crash site on the bog. Most drivers take the Upper Road out and the Lower Road back, which is the clockwise direction and the one signed from town.
Stops along the way
- Clifden. The loop starts and finishes in Clifden, the largest town in Connemara. Fuel up, grab a coffee, and use the toilets here, because there are none on the loop itself.
- Clifden Castle. A gate on the Lower Road opens onto a farm track; it’s a ten to twenty-five minute walk in to the roofless shell of the house John D’Arcy built around 1818. The track passes a line of mock standing stones that D’Arcy put up himself. This is the best short walk on the route.
- The summit viewpoint. About 5 km from Clifden the Upper Road reaches its high point, where there’s a free car park and picnic benches. It’s the obvious place to stop and watch the light move across the water.
- Eyrephort beach. Near the end of the peninsula, a small white-sand beach (marked Kingstown Bay on some maps) with clear water, rock pools and views to Inishturbot. Good for a quick leg-stretch.
- Alcock and Brown crash site. Out on Derrygimlagh bog, this is where the first non-stop transatlantic flight came down in June 1919. A short detour and a marker explain it.
One caveat on the John D’Arcy monument, sometimes listed as a Sky Road stop: it stands on Memorial Hill about 1 km west of Clifden, and there is effectively no parking beside it. It’s reached on foot from the town, not by pulling in.
A bit of history
Clifden barely existed until John D’Arcy bought the estate in 1804 and had the engineer Alexander Nimmo lay out a quay and roads in the 1820s. The town grew fast, then was gutted by the Great Famine, after which the estate passed to the Eyre family.
The peninsula’s aviation chapter came a century later. In 1905 Guglielmo Marconi built a high-power transatlantic wireless station on Derrygimlagh bog just off the Sky Road; at its peak it employed around 200 local people and carried the first fixed point-to-point wireless traffic between Europe and North America before closing in 1922. A year earlier, in June 1919, Alcock and Brown crash-landed their Vickers Vimy in the same bog, having flown the Atlantic non-stop. The peninsula also holds much older marks, from megalithic tombs to standing stones and promontory forts, if you know where to look.
Getting there and driving it
Clifden sits on the N59 between Galway city (77 km east) and Westport (64 km west). Follow the signed turn for the Sky Road out of town; the loop rejoins the N59 near Eyrephort.
The road is narrow and winding with blind corners and steep drops, and the Upper Road is no place for a coach or a caravan. Stay in your lane, don’t overtake, and take it slowly. There are no cafés, toilets or fuel on the loop, so sort all that in Clifden first. Atlantic weather turns fast: bring a waterproof and layers even in summer, and expect strong crosswinds on the top, especially in autumn and winter.
Cycling and walking
Cyclists take on the Sky Road often; the climb is short but steep, and a headwind on the Upper Road makes it harder work than the distance suggests. Ride early for lighter traffic and calmer air, and carry lights, as mist rolls in quickly. On foot, the cliff-top sections have no footpath and walking the road is not advised given the traffic and blind bends. Keep walking to the safe pull-ins, the Eyrephort beach access, and the walk in to Clifden Castle. AllTrails also lists a shorter 6.9 km circular option for those who want to leave the car.
Nearby
- Connemara National Park – a short drive inland, with forest and mountain walks and a visitor centre.
- Kylemore Abbey – 19 km north of Clifden, a 19th-century castle, Benedictine abbey and walled gardens.
- Inishbofin Island – by ferry from Cleggan, about 20 minutes north of Clifden, for coastal trails and workshops.
Time the drive for late afternoon, when the light shifts across the bays, and get to the summit car park early on summer weekends before it fills.