Lahinch for the Non-Golfer: The Burren Day

Twenty minutes north of Lahinch the land changes completely. The Burren is a limestone plateau of grey pavement and fissures, and in late spring its cracks fill with gentians, orchids and mountain avens growing side by side, alpine and Mediterranean plants that should not share a hillside. Nowhere else in Ireland puts a landscape that strange this close to a championship links.

We also send people to the wrong cliffs on purpose. The Cliffs of Moher have a car park, a visitor centre and a crowd. Kilkee, forty five minutes south, has an amphitheatre of sea stacks, a looped clifftop walk and hardly anybody on it. That choice is the heart of this day.

Lahinch plays briskly by Irish standards, often around four hours, but the clubhouse afterwards is sociable and the village pulls golfers into its pubs. Expect the golfer back mid afternoon at the earliest and plan for later.

That gives you a morning in the Burren and an afternoon on the coast. If the round is in the afternoon, flip the order and take the Kilkee walk in the morning, when the wind is usually lighter, then drive north for a late lunch and the Perfumery.

About thirty minutes north and inland, down a lane in the middle of the Burren, the Burren Perfumery makes its scents and soaps from plants of the region in a small distillation room you can see into. There is an organic herb garden set into the limestone, and a tea room that bakes its own bread and serves soup made from what is growing outside.

It is the one place in Clare our guests most often ask to go back to. Allow an hour, and take the scenic road through the Burren to reach it rather than the fastest route. On the way you pass limestone pavement you can walk out onto, which is the best way to understand the landscape.

A short drive from Carron, the Poulnabrone dolmen is a portal tomb more than five thousand years old, standing on bare limestone pavement. It takes ten minutes to see and a lifetime to forget. Go before the coaches arrive, and walk out onto the pavement around it, carefully, because the grikes between the stones are deep.

If you want a longer walk, the Burren National Park near Corofin has marked loops across the plateau. They are exposed and rocky underfoot, so wear real shoes. For most companions the dolmen and a few minutes on the pavement are enough to carry the morning.

For a proper sit-down lunch, the Wild Honey Inn in Lisdoonvarna has been one of the most respected kitchens in the west for years, cooking local produce with real skill in a country inn. Book it before you travel. Nearby, the Burren Smokehouse sells its smoked salmon, which is the right thing to carry home.

If the morning ran long, go back to Lahinch village and eat seafood chowder by the promenade, watching the surfers. Both are booked out in summer without a reservation, and kitchens here keep seasonal hours, so check current days directly before you commit.

Drive forty five minutes south to Kilkee, a Victorian seaside town on a horseshoe bay. The cliff walk leaves from the western end of town and loops around sea stacks, blowholes and headlands on grass, with the Atlantic on three sides. Allow about two and a half hours for the full loop at a relaxed pace.

The path runs close to unfenced edges in places, so keep well back and shorten the walk at the halfway point if the wind is up. Afterwards, the Pollock Holes, natural rock pools on the reef at low tide, are where locals swim. Then drive back to Lahinch for the reunion in the village.

Swap the cliff walk for Ennistymon, three miles inland from Lahinch, where the Cascades tumble through the middle of town beside an old bridge and there are good bookshops and pubs to shelter in. The St Tola goat cheese farm near Inagh is on the way back and worth the detour for anybody who cooks.

We would skip the Cliffs of Moher between ten and four. Go in the evening on another day, when the light is behind you and the crowds have left, or not at all. Kilkee gives you the cliff experience without the visitor centre.

Lahinch is about fifty minutes from Shannon Airport, which makes it a natural first or final stop on a west coast trip. You need a car for this day. Stay in the village if you want to walk to the course and the pubs, or at one of the country houses in the Burren if the companion is the priority.

Most groups combine Lahinch with Ballybunion, a ferry crossing and short drive south into Kerry, and with Doonbeg on the same coast. That gives the companion the Burren day, a quieter north Kerry day, and a coast walk day in one week, each genuinely different.