Connemara Tour by O Neachtain Tours

Tour Itinerary

This tour includes the most interesting aspects of Connemara to enable you to get the best possible view and knowledge of the changes which have occurred over the centuries. This is an ideal opportunity for you to forget about the left hand side of the road for a day. Sit back and relax on our luxury highline yellow and white Mercedes coaches.

O'Neachtains professional tour guide will give you many stops to explore and photograph in each area. Come and be entertained: Irish music, history, geography, culture, stories and fokelore.

Galway City

Our tour leaves Galway City along the very scenic Connemara coast road (see map) with breath taking views of Galway Bay, the limestone Burren and the Hills of Clare.

Spiddal

Approaching the charming village of Spiddal, Next it's on to the deserted famine village where ample time is given to explore and photograph the village. Rossaveal is the departure point for the ferryboats to the Aran Islands. O'Neachtains Connemara tour has pick-up arrangements with the 9am ferry from the Aran Islands each morning.

Now we journey on to Costello and Screeb. We are now in the Irish speaking area where Gaelic or Irish is the spoken language.

At Maam Cross, the Connemara "crossroads", there is a replica of the cottage used in the 1950s John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara film "The Quiet Man" filmed locally.

From Maam Cross our tour heads out towards the world famous Kylemore Abbey on a journey of unsurpassed beauty driving through the green Inagh Valley that divides the two sets of mountains - the Maam Turks and the Twelve Bens. Ben Ban is the highest mountain in Connemara. Here you can photograph the mountains, and the lakes and pools shining like little pieces of broken mirror.

Next we see the magnificent Kylemore Abbey which is an 18th century castle that is now in the good hands of the Benedictine Nuns, who run an excellent boarding school. This is where we have our next long break with ample time for lunch and a visit to the abbey and its beautiful gothic church and walled gardens.

Back at Maam Cross the tour goes towards the Quietman Bridge. It's also the main area where the farmers dig the peat from the bogs. Next to Oughterard a village on the banks of Lough Corrib - one of the best fishing lakes in Ireland. This village is also described as "The Gateway to Connemara" and one of Ireland's leading angler resorts. We continue to Moycullen where you have the marble factory and get back to Galway City at approx 5:15pm.

You will find our guide friendly and always willing to share a joke with you. It's an experience we hope you will treasure for many years of one of the most beautiful spots in Ireland.