Irish road trip: the Wild Atlantic Way

With an occasional tractor circling its clocktower roundabout, Westport's gentle Georgian blend of tourist town and rural service centre sits at the eastern end of Clew Bay. According to locals “there's 365 islands in the bay, one for every day”. The scenic scattering of low-slung islets and rocky outcrops includes Dorinish, a slender eight-hectare island bought by John Lennon in 1967 and owned by Yoko Ono until 1984. Now Dorinish is populated only by sheep but is usually sighted on Clew Bay cruises departing from Westport.

Our own destination on a day trip from Westport is Achill Island, the bay's largest island, and linked to the Irish mainland by the Michael Davitt Bridge which swings open to let boat traffic through. Northwest Ireland's reputation for changeable weather is intact; misty squalls roll in as we drive across Achill's interior of peat bogs framed by ancient stone walls. The improbably compact Lynott's Bar – reputedly Ireland's smallest and self-described as “a small pub not for the fainthearted. Public speaking encouraged and an ideal location for debates and non-amplified singing” – would be an ideal refuge, but opening time is still several hours away.  

Housed in scatterings of whitewashed cottages, Achill Island's contemporary population is less than 3,000. That's down from a mid-19th-century high of over 4,500, and around the abandoned village of Slievemore historic echoes still linger. During the 19^th century's years of famine and impacted by increased rents on their small plots of arable land, Slievemore villagers either emigrated from the island or moved closer to the ocean to more easily harvest seafood.

Decades later and draped in drizzle and shapeshifting banks of mist, exploring Slievemore's skeletal remains of stone-walled houses is like being absorbed into a black and white movie. Nearby Neolithic archaeological sites reinforce earlier human habitation stretching back 6,000 years.

If Achill Island's 21st-century locals need to be hardy, its woolly four-legged population is even more hardcore. As we negotiate the narrow clifftop road to famed Keem Bay, scores of County Mayo's famous blackface mountain sheep crowd the route or secure the most exposed and elevated points on the sea cliffs. 

Descending via switchbacks, banks of coastal cloud finally part to reveal the glorious cove featured in the recent Irish tragicomedy, The Banshees of Inisherin.

Even better blue skies and sunshine elevate the next part of the journey northeast to Strandhill. A summer-friendly brace of food trucks – gelato and wood-fired pizza – feature along Strandhill's esplanade, while surfers are weaving and bobbing in decent-sized waves offshore. Our own Strandhill experience is more relaxing, easing into a half-hour session at VOYA Seaweed Baths where a silky amalgam of locally harvested seaweed and warm water may well be the perfect detox to the velvety pints of Guinness I've been enjoying.

Yet another perfectly poured pint features later in Sligo Town, bisected by the River Garavogue, linked by stone pedestrian bridges, and imbued with a literary heritage including poet and writer, W.B. Yeats, and Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula. Like Westport, Sligo's also big on traditional Irish music, and after a quick appraisal of the gigs spilling out from riverside pubs, we settle into Sunday evening twilight at the raffish Shoot the Crows. Compared to Matt Molloy's in Westport, it's a thoroughly impromptu affair, with local musos drifting in and out with their instruments. Between-songs banter is equally improvised. In a compact city of just 20,000, there are around ten nearby venues offering a similarly relaxed musical experience.

From County Sligo we cross to County Donegal, the northernmost county in the Republic of Ireland. To the north, a spur of the Wild Atlantic Way continues along the Inishowen Peninsula to Malin Head, mainland Ireland's northernmost point. 

We're maintaining a westward trajectory to an equally spectacular location. Venturing on coastal roads that become increasingly narrow and serpentine, a final downhill detour on the accurately named Wee Road south of the village of Carrick brings us to the Sliabh Liag Cliff Experience Visitor Centre.  As a Gaeltacht region, this remote part of Ireland is predominantly Gaelic-speaking; signage and information at the centre is proudly bi-lingual. We drive and then walk to a viewing platform high above the Atlantic at Bunratty Point where local guide John McGroary translates Sliabh Liag (Slieve League in English) to Mountain of the Flagstones.

Energised by gusty winds, views include scree-covered and emerald-coloured slopes rising from the sheltered waters of the bay; John points out the distinctive rocky islets known locally as the 'Giant's Chair and Table'. To the west, Europe's highest accessible sea cliffs stretch to tower over the isolated Gaeltacht villages of Malinbeg and Malinore.

Wispy clouds finally clear to reveal patches of cobalt sky. Silhouetted on the cliffs' ridgeline, a group of hikers are following a spidery 4km trail known as the Pilgrim's Path to the coastal tarn of Lough (Lake) Agh. 

After the monochrome, misty mountain vibe of Achill Island, we're now travelling in technicolour.  Almost three times as high as the more famous Cliffs of Moher to the south in County Clare, Sliabh Liag is a remote destination that truly puts the wild in the Wild Atlantic Way.