The Long Way RoundNotebook No 108August 2025
Connemara's small loop, the one most visitors drive past.
Collected by Deborah. Read her editorial perspective
When the Connemara light is still tentative, before the day fully arrives, take the Sky Road. This ten-mile loop outside Clifden offers you a high path along the headland and a lower return route through the bog. No large tour coaches navigate these narrow turns, ensuring this experience remains for you to discover.
Slea Head
We always recommend driving this loop before the midday activity truly begins. Pull over at the upper viewpoint, alight from your vehicle, and walk just a hundred yards beside the old stone wall. The air here holds the land's silence, an untroubled quiet we find nowhere else.
This hour is a pure distillation of Connemara.
The Ireland Edit Way
Cut the itinerary in half, then cut it again. The letter we send before every first visit.
Every hotel change costs you half a day. Luxury, in Ireland, is staying put.
Six questions we apply before booking any room in Ireland. The November test, the dinner-twice test, the landscape-over-room test.
To understand Ireland, stop looking at the castles and start looking at the kitchen table.
From the notebook
Collected notes. A few times each season.