I hope your trip includes a visit to the Aran Islands, off the west coast. In 2 trips to Ireland, both have included staying one night on Inishmore (Inis Mor), the biggest of the 3 islands. We took a ferry on our first trip, in late June 2011, with bikes we’d rented on the mainland. Trip last year, September, sans bikes, we flew. Flying’s so much faster, and isn’t affected by cancellation if the seas are rough.
So last September, we hired one of the many on-site guides driving a van, who all give a tour seeing the standard sights on the island. This includes Dun Aengus, a mysterious site of an ancient fort, most of which has now fallen off the cliff on which it’s perched. Getting there involves a 20-30 minute uphill hike, no routefinding needed, but it gets your heart rate up. Non hikers can hang out at the small museum at the base of the climb, which has a few shops and places to have tea or a bite to eat very nearby.
But as a bonus, our guide, not a kid, but someone who’s lived on the island his whole life, and who’s explored the entire place on foot since he was a kid, took us to The Wormhole on request. It’s a naturally formed, almost perfectly rectangular hole worn in the rock, positioned above the sea, and the occasional wave will cause a geyser-like effect, with water unexpectedly spraying and spouting in huge display through the hole. Red Bull extreme diving competitions, with daring divers jumping through the hole from a rock above it on one side, get staged there now. It’s a totally unmarked route to get there, not a major climb or descent, but over rough ground, a mile or two each way. We’d have never found it on our own, and despite a fair amount of experience routefinding and orienteering throughout the Rocky Mountains in the USA, and elsewhere. The isolated site, and the desolate landscape getting there and back, felt like quite an expedition had been accomplished. It’s not technically difficult, so anyone with a decent pair of supportive, slip resistant shoes could make the trek, even if they’d want a spa experience a day or two later. Still, not on the usual tourist agenda.
Inishmore offers other hikes, like to the Black Fort, which also don’t have a simple, signed trail, and require a bit of resourcefulness to reach, but not necessarily a guide. We got rain on both visits, and our 2nd day last September had fierce wind and sideways rain, which shredded the flowers in the beds in front of our B&B. Ferries got cancelled, but our afternoon airplane flew us back to the mainland, as planned. It’s a remote place with hardy residents - well worth a visit.
