Galway, Donegal & the Wild Atlantic West

The west holds some of Ireland's oldest human landscapes. The Céide Fields in north Mayo preserve Neolithic stone field walls beneath the bog, and the Carrowmore cemetery near Sligo is one of the largest groups of megalithic tombs in the country. Rathcroghan in Roscommon was the royal seat of Connacht, home in legend to Queen Medb, who launched the Cattle Raid of Cooley. Early monks settled on the Aran Islands and the offshore rocks, and the O'Donnells of Donegal and the O'Connors of Connacht became the dominant Gaelic dynasties.

The Anglo-Norman de Burgo family founded Galway in the 13th century, and it grew into a merchant town ruled by fourteen families, the "Tribes", trading wine with Spain and France. Gráinne Mhaol, or Grace O'Malley, commanded ships from Clew Bay in the 16th century. After the defeat at Kinsale, the Gaelic lords of Ulster left from Rathmullan on Lough Swilly in the Flight of the Earls of 1607, and Cromwell's settlement later pushed dispossessed Catholic landowners west of the Shannon — "to Hell or to Connacht". A French force landed at Killala in 1798 and routed the government troops at Castlebar before surrendering.

The Famine hit Connacht hardest of all, and the west lost people for more than a century afterwards. Michael Davitt founded the Land League in Castlebar in 1879, launching the campaign that transferred land to tenant farmers. Partition in 1921 left Donegal in the Free State but cut off from Derry, its natural market town.

This is the heartland of spoken Irish. The Connemara Gaeltacht, the largest in the country, runs west from Galway city to Carna and out to the Aran Islands, with the national Irish-language radio station and television channel based there, and there are Gaeltacht districts in Mayo, on Achill and across west Donegal, from Gweedore to Tory Island, which still names a "king". Sean-nós singing, unaccompanied and highly ornamented, belongs above all to Connemara.

Traditional music is everywhere: Galway's pub sessions, the Sligo fiddle style, and Gweedore, home to Clannad, Enya and Altan. W. B. Yeats spent childhood summers in Sligo and is buried at Drumcliff beneath Ben Bulben. Galway city is young, bohemian and student-heavy, and its July arts festival and the Galway Races at Ballybrit are fixtures of the national summer.

Faith is visible in the landscape. Pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday, many barefoot; Knock in Mayo has been a Marian shrine since a reported apparition in 1879; and Lough Derg in south Donegal holds a three-day penitential pilgrimage on Station Island. Crafts include Aran knitwear, Donegal tweed woven around Ardara and Donegal town, and the Claddagh ring from the old fishing village beside Galway.

Galway, with about 85,000 people, is the only city in the region, with a university and a cluster of medical-device manufacturers. Letterkenny in Donegal and Sligo each have around 20,000, and Castlebar, Ballina, Westport, Roscommon and Carrick-on-Shannon are market towns. Leitrim is the least populated county in Ireland.

The rural economy is sheep and suckler cattle on poor land, fishing — Killybegs is home to Ireland's largest trawlers — fish farming, turf-cutting for home fires, and tourism along the Wild Atlantic Way. Remote working has brought some younger families back since 2020, but emigration and ageing still mark many villages, and the Aran Islands and Tory depend on ferries and subsidised services.

A current issue in Donegal and Mayo is the defective-blocks scandal: thousands of homes built with blocks containing too much mica are crumbling, and their owners have campaigned for years for full state redress. Donegal's life also runs across the border, with thousands commuting daily to Derry and beyond.

Galway Bay is known for its native flat oysters, celebrated each September at festivals in Galway city and nearby Clarenbridge, often with a pint of stout. Mussels farmed in Killary Harbour, crab, lobster, mackerel and smoked salmon from Connemara smokehouses fill the menus, and Killybegs is home to the country's largest trawlers. Seaweeds such as dulse are eaten dried, and carrageen moss is set with milk into a soft, pale pudding.

Lamb raised on the mountains of Connemara and Achill, which grazes on heather and salt grass, is prized. Boxty, a pancake of grated raw and mashed potato, belongs to Leitrim, Sligo and Mayo — "boxty on the griddle, boxty in the pan", as the rhyme runs — along with brown soda bread and potato cakes.

Poitín, the clear spirit once distilled illegally from barley or potato in the Connemara hills, is now also produced commercially under a protected geographical indication. Craft breweries and new distilleries in Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal make beer, whiskey and seaweed-flavoured gin.

Galway city centres on the Latin Quarter, Shop Street, the Spanish Arch and the promenade at Salthill. West of it, Connemara runs through Oughterard, the Maam Cross bogs and the Twelve Bens to Roundstone and Clifden, with Kylemore Abbey by its lake, Connemara National Park at Letterfrack and Killary Harbour on the Mayo border. The Aran Islands — Inis Mór, Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr — offer Dún Aonghasa, stone-walled fields and bike tracks.

In Mayo, Westport is a planned Georgian town at the foot of Croagh Patrick, with Westport House and the Great Western Greenway running to Achill, whose Keem Bay, Minaun cliffs and Slievemore deserted village lie across a bridge. North Mayo has the Céide Fields and Downpatrick Head's sea stack; Knock and the Clare Island ferry lie within reach.

Sligo has Carrowmore, Knocknarea's cairn, Ben Bulben, Lough Gill with Innisfree and the surf beaches of Strandhill and Mullaghmore; Leitrim has Glencar Waterfall and Shannon cruising from Carrick-on-Shannon; Roscommon has Rathcroghan, Strokestown's famine museum and Lough Key. Donegal's Slieve League cliffs rise above the sea near Teelin, and Glenveagh National Park and castle lie beside Errigal, with Malin Head, the Inishowen peninsula, Fanad Head and the Grianán of Aileach in the north.