Expat Travel Mom

This was part of two massive road trips across Ireland and Northern Ireland together, over nine weeks and well over a thousand miles. If you're planning to follow similar routes, or just have the time for it, this post covers Connemara and the west specifically. The rest of the trips are broken out separately: Northern Ireland, The Wild Northwest, Dublin & the East, and The South & West.

Claddagh Rings in Galway, Galway/Mayo Border, and Westport.

We couldn't pass through Galway without learning the real story behind the Claddagh ring, that unmistakable design of two hands holding a crowned heart, which actually originated right here, in a small fishing village called Claddagh just outside the old city walls. The most enduring legend traces it to a Galway goldsmith named Richard Joyce, captured by Algerian pirates and sold into slavery sometime in the late 1600s. While enslaved, he trained under a master goldsmith, and when he was finally freed, he came home to Galway and made the very first Claddagh ring for the sweetheart who had waited for him. The design has stayed remarkably faithful ever since, hands for friendship, a heart for love, a crown for loyalty, and how it's worn on the hand still quietly signals whether the wearer is single, in a relationship, engaged, or married. It's a real piece of family tradition for us now too, one worth understanding the full story behind before you ever put one on. We went to the one and only Thomas Dillons. 

We went a little further to find the border between county Galway and county Mayo, and wandered a lovely, walkable town called Westport to wind down. Our Airbnb gave us an easy, unhurried afternoon before we pushed on toward Ashford Castle.

Killary Fjord

Often called Ireland's only true fjord, Killary Harbour cuts sixteen kilometers inland from the Atlantic, forming the natural border between County Galway and County Mayo, with the Maumturk Mountains rising on one side and Mweelrea, the highest peak in Connacht, on the other. We took a boat out along it, passing strings of mussel ropes stretching for much of its length, this is still real working shellfish-farming water, not just scenery. At over 45 meters deep at its center, it's a genuinely dramatic, moody stretch of coastline, and seeing it from the water rather than the road made all the difference.

Sheep Dog Herding Near Cushkillary and Bunowen

One of the most purely delightful afternoons of the whole trip. We watched a real, working border collie herd a flock of sheep across open hillside near Cushkillary and Bunowen, entirely on whistle commands from its handler. Watching one dog move an entire flock exactly where it needed to go, with barely more than a glance from its owner, was genuinely mesmerizing, the kids couldn't stop talking about it for days.

Achill Island

A day trip out to Achill from Westport, and genuinely one of the most dramatic landscapes of the entire trip. Achill is Ireland's largest island, connected to the mainland by a single bridge, and people have lived here for roughly 5,000 years. The scenery does most of the talking: Croaghaun's sea cliffs rank among the highest in all of Europe, and Keem Bay, a perfect horseshoe of golden sand tucked beneath steep cliffs at the island's western edge, was actually a working basking shark hunting station until just a few decades ago. We drove the Atlantic Drive along the southern coast, passing Kildownet Castle, once home to the legendary Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley, before finding our way out to that same stunning bay. Wild, remote, and genuinely unlike anywhere else we visited in Ireland.

Ashford Castle

We couldn't resist a private tour here, and it did not disappoint. Ashford Castle dates back to 1228, originally built by the Anglo-Norman de Burgo family on the shores of Lough Corrib, though its most famous chapter came later, when the Guinness family bought it in 1852 and turned it into their own private hunting estate and entertaining grounds for nearly seventy years, hosting guests that included the future King George V. It's since been restored into one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, but what our kids will actually remember is meeting Cronan and Garvan, the castle's resident Irish Wolfhounds, enormous, gentle giants of a breed that was nearly extinct in Ireland by the 19th century before dedicated breeders brought it back. Walking those castle grounds with two wolfhounds at our side, in a place that's hosted royalty and beer barons alike, felt like a genuinely fitting way to experience the west of Ireland at its grandest.

Connemara gave us mountains, a real fjord, working sheep dogs, and a castle straight out of a storybook, a completely different side of Ireland from the coastlines and cities we'd already fallen for on the rest of the trip.

These were our two big road trips.