Inch sits on the R474, the road that runs south-west from Ennis toward Milltown Malbay. It is small enough that most people drive through it on the way somewhere else — which is more or less its whole situation in life. The village has a church, a national school, and the unhurried feel of mid-Clare at its most mid-Clare.
The church — Our Lady of the Wayside — was built in 1833 by Fr Lynch and repaired after storm damage in 1903. Inside, a holy water font transferred from an earlier chapel is dated 1813, the only surviving piece of whatever came before. The millennium grotto outside was put together by parishioners in 2000. None of this shouts for attention, which is the point.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
Built by Fr Lynch, badly battered in the 1903 storm, still standing. The font inside predates the building by twenty years. The stained glass is documented by the Clare Heritage Office.
Stories & lore → 02 The schoolInch National School has been running in the parish since 1858. It sits at the edge of the village, one of three primary schools in the combined parish of Inch, Kilmaley and Connolly.
Getting here → 03 The GAAThe Davitts club, formed in Inch in 1886, was one of three local clubs that eventually amalgamated into the Kilmaley GAA entity in 1934. Kilmaley won the Clare Senior Hurling Championship in 1985 and again in 2004.
Stories & lore →The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
The countryside between Inch and Kilmaley is quietly good in March and April. No crowds. No particular reason to rush.
A reasonable base for Ennis, five kilometres up the road, which has everything Inch does not.
Mid-Clare autumn. If the hurling is going well, the parish will know about it.
There is less to recommend it in winter unless you have a reason to be here. Ennis is warmer in every sense.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
There is a church and a school and farms. Ennis is five kilometres away if you want anything more than that.
It is locked outside Mass times. Sunday morning is the time if you want to see the font and the stained glass.
Inch is a village that prefers to stay a village. Milltown Malbay is the next real settlement, twenty minutes on.
Ennis to Inch is under ten minutes on the R474 heading south-west toward Milltown Malbay. It is straightforward in a way very few Clare roads are.
Bus Éireann services between Ennis and Kilrush pass through or close to the village. Check the Ennis departures for the Kilrush/Kilmihil corridor.