The West

The most westerly seaboard in Europe, Ireland's West is richly endowed by nature: the majestic Cliffs of Moher; the rocky expanse of the Burren (whose gray rocks hide a profusion of wild plants); Connemara's combination of rugged coastline, mountains, moorland, and lakes; and the famous Oileáin Árainn (Aran Islands), which do constant battle with the fury of the Atlantic. But the region also abounds in characterful small country towns and villages, such as Kinvara, Ballyvaughan, Clifden, and Westport, rife with good restaurants and pubs, and Galway, the city that loves to celebrate.

The West encompasses the region that lies west of the River Shannon; most of this area falls within the old Irish province of Connaught. This region faces its nearest North American neighbors across 3,200 km (2,000 mi) of the Atlantic Ocean: next parish, New York, as they say in the west.

Towns as communities were unknown in pre-Christian Irish society, and even today, more than 150 years after the famine, many residents still live on isolated small farms rather than in towns and villages. Especially during the wet, wintry months, you can still walk out of your country house, hotel, or bed-and-breakfast in the morning and smell turf fires burning nearby.

Today, the West is, for many, the most typically Irish part of the country. Particularly in western County Galway, the region has the highest concentration of Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) communities in all Ireland, with roughly 40,000 native Irish speakers making their homes here. The country's first Irish-language TV station broadcasts from the tiny village of An Spidéal (Spiddle), on the north shore of Galway Bay in the heart of the Gaeltacht. Throughout this area, you'll see plenty of signs printed in Irish only. Who would suspect that Gaillimh is Irish for Galway? But wherever you go in the West, you'll not only see, but more importantly hear, the most vital way in which traditional Irish culture survives here: musicians play in pubs all over the west, and they are acknowledged to be the best in the Republic.

A major factor in the region's economic development has been the lure of its spectacular scenery to visitors. So far, the development that typically comes with the cultivation of tourism has been mercifully low-key in the West. The Irish people are well aware of what a jewel they have in the largely unspoiled wilderness, grazed by sheep and herds of wild ponies, that is Connemara. The 5,000-acre Connemara National Park is the result of a successful lobby for landscape preservation. Peatlands, or bogs as they are called around here, are at last being valued for their unique botanical character. Ireland's last remaining peat-burning electricity-generating station—at Bellacorick in County Mayo—has closed. Galway City's suburbs have spread in all directions, and throughout the region the landscape is marked by newly built bungalows and houses. With increasing prosperity, the West of Ireland is undoubtedly losing some of its old-style visual charm. But while this is regrettable in terms of unspoiled views, for the people who live in the area, it is a boon.

It's nothing new that the West's greatest virtue for visitors—apart from its glorious scenery and the vibrant capital city of Galway—is its people. No matter how many times you get out of the car for a photo op (and you should expect to fly through megabytes of memory here), the stories that you'll most likely tell when you show your friends and family those pictures are going to be about the seisún, or sessions (informal performances of traditional music) you stumbled upon in a small pub; the tiny, far-from-the-madding-crowd lake in Connemara that you made your own; and the great craic (pronounced "crack," or good conversation and fun) you're likely to discover wherever you go.

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