Doolin, Co Clare is a wee village, or it was back in the backpacking days of 1980s. Almost as many pubs as people. OK that’s an exaggeration, but there were quite a few cozy pubs serving buckets of Guinness and dishing up a menu of rich, dark Irish folk music and humour and you spent the night wandered from one to the next. It felt remote and special. Obviously lots of other people thought so too! and today the place is teaming with touristy stuff.
Ten or so years ago it became part of the UNESCO designation - The Burren and Cliffs of Moher Global Geopark which saw the area receive a huge injection of funds to develop and preserve its geo-special features. The area is riddled with caves and near Doolin is a cave with one of the world’s largest stalactites. The Burren is special for its glacial karst landscape, which I love, and the Cliffs of Moher for its mighty vertical sandstone and shale sea cliffs the highest in Europe they say. We might have to return - off season! to explore some of these wonderful things further.
The Cliffs of Moher are quite impressive but getting near them provided a challenge. Once you could walk the cliffs with few restrictions but now there are designated parking places, turnstiles and fences and .... I know we must preserve such natural wonders and it should be so, but ... !? We drove on and found a turn off to a cliff walk. A number of Km in off the main road to a small village and then a few Km walk and we were on the edge of the southern end of the Cliffs at Hag’s Head. The landowner is still building paths and fences so there were areas where there were sheer drops. Rather scary, but awesome and we were there and experiencing it! I love this area!
Very Quaint and twee!
The Cliffs of Moher from the northern end at Doolin.
This is the official access point - and the bus drop off. Across the road there’s a huge car park. Note walk way in the back ground. We drove on.
Never underestimate the destination at the end of a country lane!
This wee farming village offered some friendly assisted parking and access to the southern end of the Cliffs.
OMG. Do I have to walk all that way? Indeed and 2 km later - voila!
Hag’s Head the southern and high end of the Cliffs
This is Moher Tower, actually the stone ruin of an old watchtower. It stands close to the site of an earlier fortification, known as Mothar or Moher, a promontory fort. The earlier fortification was demolished in 1808 to provide material for a new lookout/signalling tower during the Napoleonic Wars. Similar to the one on Malin Head and many spots along the coast.
Looking to the south.
Looking north and yes we were close to the edge. A bit scary.
We would have loved to walk a km or so further but it felt a bit scary getting down to the track from where we were. But it’s pretty awesome! Note there were few barriers at this end.
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