Connemara Bus Tour – Failte Tours

Route:
Map:
View Connemara Bus Tour in a larger map

Attractions Visted:

• Moycullen
• Ougtherard
• Quiet Man Bridge
• Maam Cross
• Leenane
• Kylmore Abbey
• Inagh Valley
• Recess
• Rossaveal
• Inverin
• Spiddal

Description:

This day 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  coaches. Fáilte Tours’ 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 folklore.
Our day tour leaves Galway City along the very scenic Connemara coast road (see map below) with breath taking views of Galway Bay, the limestone Burren and the Hills of Clare.

Approaching the charming village of Spiddal, we stop at Standúns sweater and souvenir shop for refreshments. 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. Fáilte Tours’ Connemara day tour has pick-up arrangements with the 8.30am ferry from the Aran Islands each morning.

Take a leisurely drive along the Atlantic Coast, the route trod by those who were leaving Connemara during the Famine. Our professional guide will take you through the villages of Bearna, Furbo and Spiddal into the heart of Connemara, referred to as “The Gealtacht” where Irish is still the first language.

We will then follow the coast road to Baile n hAbhann, home to the Famine Village and here you will have a twenty five minute walk through the ruins of the Famine Village and see the remains of the original houses left behind by those trying to escape the famine. You will also see some restored cottages and there will be plenty of photo opportunities as your guide explains the story of the famine and the mass emigration.

Your tour then continues along the coast past Rossaveal, the major fishing port of Connemara and on through the Blanket Bog area, where we will show you how “Turf” was cut together with a stop at the Leprechaun’s Cottage and Screeb Waterfall. We continue now at a leisurely pace to Maam Cross, the crossroads of Connemara.  At Maam Cross, the Connemara “crossroads”, there is a replica of the cottage used in the 1950’s 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. The 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.

No Tour of Connemara is complete without Visiting Kylemore Abbey and it’s beautiful Victorian Walled Garden. We spend around 2 hours here to give you time to explore and have lunch.

After we have had lunch and explored the Abbey and grounds we depart on the homeward journey. We follow the road towards Leenane stopping at Killary Fjord, the only one of it’s kind in Ireland. We now enter the village of Leenane, famous for the film “The Field”.

The Field was shot almost entirely in the Connemara village of Leenane, overshadowed by the wet and misty mountains of Connemara and Mayo.

The pub scenes in the film were shot in Gaynor’s, one of three bars which serve this tiny one-street village.

Bull’s House was a spartan stone cottage, subsequently inhabited by sheep, just beyond the village on the road to Clifden.

The Field itself was a little patch of bright green, enclosed by a dry stone dyke, beneath the dark Partry mountains. It was located about six miles outside Leenane on the right-hand side of the road to Westport, beside a little bridge.

The scene of the climactic fight between Bull and his son, and the American, was shot a few miles from Leenane at Aasleagh Falls, on the Erriff river.

With a budget of £5 million, filming on The Field began on 02 October 1989 and lasted for eight weeks.

Now we head on towards the Maam Valley. As we arrive at Maam Cross, completing the Connemara Loop, we stop at the replica cottage made famous in the film “The Quiet Man”. Again you have some photo opportunities here and then it’s homeward bound as we drive towards Oughterard and Moycullen before we arrive back into Galway.

Clifden, the capital of Connemara, was founded by John D’arcy in 1812. Clifden is an ideal holiday centre. Aviation history was made at Derrygimlagh bog near Clifden when Alcock and Browne crashed landed after their historic transatlantic flight in 1919. The Connemara pony breeders association come together every August to hold the world famous Connemara pony show. As we leave Clifden we see the Clifden Glen holiday homes.