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Getting to Inishbofin: The island lies off the Connemara coast. Ferries (€20 return) operate three times daily during peak season and twice daily in off season, from Cleggan, which is about 20 minutes’ drive from Clifden. inishbofinislanddiscovery.com |
It’s 11am in Cleggan and the pub is doing a brisk trade. Purchasing water, I find a hen party already ensconced by the bar, which is awash with tipples. On the quayside, as our boat is loaded with supplies, I feel the inevitable quickened pulse that comes with boarding a ferry to a place where life is still ruled by forces of nature and people only survive within closely bonded communities. Just before departure, the hens suddenly reappear, drinks now in plastic containers and I realise – gulp – they are also heading for Inishbofin.
I shouldn’t be surprised, of course, for recently this tranquil, low-lying island, which seems but tenuously moored to the Irish mainland, has become a popular destination.
When our boat arrives at Bofin’s secluded harbour beneath cloud speckled skies, the hens immediately make a bee-line for the hotel, while I head west and then right to join the arrows for Westquarter Loop.
Soon, I am on the island's high road, enjoying ravishing vistas north along the storm tormented Mayo coastline and also of Inishturk, which vies with Tory for the title of Ireland's remotest inhabited island.
With the wild hills of Achill and Nephin to the north and Croagh Patrick raising its handsome head in the northeast, I continue along a green road and then across a stony beach separating the unusual, landlocked lagoon of Loch Bo Finne from the Atlantic Ocean.
Next, a surfaced road conveys me through a gate and along an enchanting coastal track with the excellent underfoot conditions giving me a first hint of pleasures to come.
When the track peters out, the route veers south over a soft carpet of grassland with tantalising panoramas unfolding over the Stags Rocks to uninhabited Inishshark island. Gazing upon its modest dimensions, it seems incredible that, prior to the famine, this small lump of earth supported more than 200 inhabitants.
Onwards now past the island’s highest cliffs, capped by a promontory fort, before joining another unforgettable green road heading east. This climbs gently to a high point where I stop dead in my tracks, for below lies one of the most exquisite beaches I have ever seen. The glistening white sands of Trá Geal could be straight out of a Greek islands holiday brochure, and then, as if to emphasis this, a young couple stroll arm in arm across my line of vision, leaving a perfect set of united footprints in the pristine sand.
Moving on, beside an ocean that today is many shades of turquoise and blue, I have the mutating colours of the Connemara mountains as a backdrop for the descent to my start point at Inishbofin pier.
Later, in the hotel bar, as the hens re-assemble for what will be a long night, I reflect that the beauty of Bofin for walkers is not just the unmatched coastal vistas and lack of hills, but the open access and absence of stonewalls that commonly thwart unfettered exploration of other Irish islands.
