KILKEE
, over on the Atlantic coast and eight miles northwest of Kilrush, is a small, busy, seaside holiday town with all the amenities you'd expect: cheap cafés, restaurants, amusements and nightlife. Popular with the bucket-and-spade brigade, the town comes as a healthy piece of normality if the offbeat romanticism of the west coast has become too much. The westerly tip of the town's magnificent golden beach, set in dramatic cliff scenery, meets an apron of laminated rock strata known as the Duggerna Rocks, which protects it from the ravages of the Atlantic. Here, when the tide is out, deep, clear pollock holes form, filled with colourful marine life.
The area is a favourite for scuba diving and snorkelling, but even without equipment, exploration is rewarding. There are exhilarating walks for miles along the cliffs both to the north and, more spectacularly, to the south round
Loop Head
, where you can walk for sixteen miles along the cliff's edge past stack rocks, puffing holes (where the sea spouts up through crevices in the rock) and the natural Bridges of Ross. The other good way to see this peninsula is by
bike
; you can rent them from Williams', Circular Rd (tel 065/905 6041; £7/?8.89 per day).
In the little church at
MONEEN
, near Kilbaha at the tip of the peninsula, you'll find a nineteenth-century curiosity known as
The Little Arc
. In penal times, Catholics were forced to be both ingenious and secret in the practice of their faith. Here they were not allowed to worship on land, and so built a little hut on wheels which was kept on the beach and wheeled down below the high-water mark between tides, beyond the legal grasp of the local Protestant landowner. The priest would then say Mass in it while the congregation knelt around it on the beach. A couple of pubs at the tiny village of Cross are handy for breaking your explorations of Loop Head, but better by far is the unspoilt fishing village of
CARRIGAHOLT
, which has a slither of beach beside the quays, a ruined castle overlooking the harbour and some very welcoming pubs:
The Long Dock
, for example, does good pub
food
and has music several nights a week in summer. Carrigaholt is also an excellent place to see Ireland's only known resident group of bottlenose
dolphins
- they're sometimes visible from the shore, but the best way is to take a boat trip with Dolphin Watch (tel 065/905 8156; 2hr boat trip; advance booking essential; £10/?12.70).
