Hours, prices and access verified by the Galway Ireland Tours team — last checked 2026-09-12
The four directions a day out of Galway can take, in photographs: the Cliffs of
Moher and the Burren, Connemara and Kylemore, the stone walls of the Aran Islands, and the city
itself. Every frame comes from the operators who run the Galway walking tours listed here.
What the photographs show, and what a map does not, is how different the three directions
are. South into County Clare is bare limestone and a two-hundred-metre wall of rock, with
Poulnabrone Dolmen standing on the pavement and Dunguaire Castle on the water at Kinvara.
North-west into Connemara is bog, quartzite mountains and Kylemore Abbey on its lake. The
islands are neither: Inis Oírr is a grid of dry-stone walls on a slab of rock, fifteen minutes
off the coast at Doolin.
In the city the frames are smaller. Painted shopfronts along the Latin Quarter, a
thirteenth-century hall under an office floor, the Long Walk across the water at the Claddagh,
and a hooker at its moorings with its mast still up.
Captions say what is in the frame and stop. A place is named only where the frame makes it
unmistakable, so a coast road is called a coast road unless it could only be one road.
The Cliffs of Moher running north from the viewing platform, sea pinks in the grassThe sea stack standing off the foot of the Cliffs of MoherThe Cliffs of Moher in low evening light, the stack offshoreThe Cliffs of Moher under broken cloud, the Atlantic belowO'Brien's Tower on the headland above the Cliffs of MoherThe Cliffs of Moher from above, the visitor path running along the topA cruise boat on the water below the Cliffs of Moher, beside the sea stackA cruise boat under the cliff wall, showing the scale of the rock aboveA horse grazing on clifftop grass above the AtlanticA coast road running along the cliff edge on the Wild Atlantic WayPoulnabrone Dolmen standing on the limestone pavement of the BurrenDunguaire Castle reflected in still water at KinvaraThe road into Doolin at dusk, the signpost at the junctionA pair of puffins on the rocks above the seaO'Brien's Castle above the dry-stone walls of Inis OírrThe stone-walled fields of the Aran Islands from the airThe rusted hull of the Plassey on the rocks of Inis OírrThe cliffs of the Aran Islands from the air, the Atlantic beyondKylemore Abbey reflected in the lake beneath the mountainThe front of Kylemore Abbey among the treesKylemore Abbey on the lake shore beneath a wooded hillsideThe Twelve Bens rising behind the bogland of ConnemaraA Connemara valley with a lough along its floorSheep and a working dog on the slope above a Connemara loughCattle resting on the grass beside a lough in ConnemaraA whitewashed thatched cottage with a bicycle against the wallPainted shopfronts along a lane in Galway's Latin QuarterA painted pub front on a Galway streetThe painted houses of the Long Walk seen across the water at the CladdaghThe carved stone front of Lynch's Castle on Shop StreetA canal running through Galway between the housesA painted utility box in Galway showing a hooker under sailA red painted toyshop front on a Galway streetRed autumn ivy across a Gothic stone façade in GalwayCopper stills and glasses set out along a tasting counterHands shaping dough on a floured table
