Experience Western Ireland with Galway

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 West 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 refers to 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.