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KILMIHIL

CO. CLARE · IE

Kilmihil
Cill Mhichíl, Co. Clare

The Wild Atlantic Way
STOP 07 / 07

Cill Mhichíl · Co. Clare

An inland west-Clare parish village grown up around a holy well to St Michael - working farming country, four pubs, and a name that means the Church of Michael.

Kilmihil sits in inland west Clare, in the old barony of Clonderlaw, back from the Atlantic and off the main coast road that carries the traffic to Kilkee and Loop Head. It is the centre of a large rural parish - 21 townlands, around 8,000 acres - and a working village rather than a tourist one: two grocery shops, a butcher, a pharmacy, a post office, a Garda station, a community college and a GAA pitch. About 472 people lived here at the 2022 census.

The name is Cill Mhichíl, the church of Michael. The tradition is that St Senan, the great west-Clare saint of Scattery Island, founded a church here around 530 AD and dedicated it to St Michael the Archangel while travelling north from the Shannon. Whatever the truth of the date, the dedication has held for fifteen centuries: the parish, the village, the church on Church Street and the holy well on Main Street are all Michael's.

The well is the thing that makes the village make sense. St Michael's Holy Well, beside the old graveyard, was reputedly discovered in 1632 and was kept as a place of pilgrimage right through the penal years when such gatherings were illegal. A statue of St Michael stands in a glass case above it. The pilgrimage still draws people around his feast day, 29 September. The present Catholic church on Church Street was built in 1834 and refurbished in 1926.

There is no reason to come to Kilmihil on a tourist checklist, and the village would not pretend otherwise. Come for the well, for a quiet pint in a back-country pub, for the August Bank Holiday Festival of Fun with its raft race out on Knockalough Lake, or simply because you turned off the coast road on purpose. Knockalough, just east of the village, is a lake with archaeological history and a good spot for a walk and a bit of birdwatching. That is the shape of the place.

Population

~472 (2022)

Walk score

A church, a holy well, four pubs and a pitch

Founded

Church traditionally founded by St Senan c. 530 AD

Coords

52.7214° N, 9.3206° W

01 / 07

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The name

Cill Mhichíl - the church of Michael.

Tradition has St Senan founding a church here around 530 AD and dedicating it to St Michael the Archangel. The whole parish - 21 townlands across some 8,000 acres of west Clare - takes its name and its patron from that one dedication.

Stories & lore → 02 The well

St Michael's Holy Well on Main Street.

A statue of St Michael in glass over a well beside the old graveyard, reputedly discovered in 1632 and a place of pilgrimage even in penal times. The pilgrimage still gathers around his feast on 29 September.

Stories & lore → 03 The parish

A working inland village, off the coast road.

About 472 people in 2022. Two grocery shops, four pubs, a post office, a Garda station, a GAA pitch. The tourist traffic for Loop Head and the cliffs runs on roads to the west and north. Kilmihil keeps to itself.

Getting there →

02 / 07

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Daly's Bar

Local, traditional

Village pub

One of the handful of pubs in the village proper. A traditional west-Clare bar - reliable pint, regulars at the counter, trad sessions through the year. Nothing dressed up for visitors.

Breen's Public House

Local

Village pub

A working village pub in a place that still has four of them for under 500 people. Pint, conversation, GAA on the television when the parish is playing. The everyday version of the village.

Fiddle Head Bar

Local, music-leaning

Village pub

A village bar with a name that tells you music turns up here. West-Clare pubs run sessions on no fixed schedule - ask, or be lucky.

Crossroads Bar

Rural crossroads bar

Country pub, Knockalough

Out at Knockalough, east of the village near the lake. A proper rural crossroads pub - the kind a bus has never pulled up at. Handy if you are walking around Knockalough Lake.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Cill Mhichíl, c. 530 AD

St Senan and the church of Michael

The tradition is that St Senan - the sixth-century saint whose monastery was out on Scattery Island in the Shannon estuary - founded the church here and dedicated it to St Michael the Archangel on his way north through west Clare. That dedication gave the place its name: Cill Mhichíl, the church of Michael. The medieval church is long gone to ruin in the old graveyard, but the parish has carried Michael's name for the better part of fifteen hundred years, through every church that has stood on the site since.

Discovered 1632, pilgrimage ever since

St Michael's Holy Well

On Main Street, beside the old graveyard, is St Michael's Holy Well - a statue of the archangel set in a glass case above the well. The well was reputedly discovered in 1632 and became a place of pilgrimage that survived the penal era, when Catholic gatherings carried real risk. In 1937 the curate Fr Patrick O'Reilly organised improvements to the well and shrine. The pilgrimage still gathers around St Michael's feast on 29 September. It is the oldest living thing in the village, older than any building around it.

Clare senior football champions, 1980

Kilmihil's one county title

Kilmihil GAA won the Clare Senior Football Championship in 1980 - the club's only senior county title in the championship's history. In a part of the county where football, not hurling, is the parish game, a single county is the high-water mark a small inland club measures itself against. Kilmihil also produced Colm Collins, who managed the Clare senior football team, and the athletics club in the village dates to 1942.

Niall Williams and Christine Breen

The writers of Kiltumper

Kiltumper is one of the townlands of Kilmihil parish, and the cottage there is where the novelist Niall Williams - author of This Is Happiness, History of the Rain and Four Letters of Love - has lived since the 1980s with the writer Christine Breen, who returned to her ancestral home. Their joint memoirs of life on the land here, the most recent being In Kiltumper, are set in exactly this corner of west Clare. The fictional village of Faha in Williams's novels owes a good deal to the real parish around him.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Knockalough Lake Just east of the village. A quiet lake with archaeological and medieval history around its shores, good for a leisurely walk and a bit of birdwatching. The August Festival of Fun runs a raft race out on it. Wet underfoot after rain - bring boots.

Lakeside strolldistance

30-60 minutestime

The well and old graveyard St Michael's Holy Well on Main Street sits beside the old graveyard with the ruined medieval church. A short, slow loop through the heart of the village and its oldest layer. Read the older headstones if the weather lets you.

Short village walkdistance

20 minutestime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Lambing country coming green, the GAA league running, the pubs quiet enough to fall into conversation.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The August Bank Holiday Festival of Fun - parade, vintage rally, the Knockalough raft race - is the one weekend the whole parish turns out. Long evenings for the back-road drive down to Loop Head.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The St Michael's pilgrimage gathers at the well around his feast on 29 September. Championship football season for the GAA club. The best time to see the village being itself.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, wet inland fields, the pubs by the fire. A fine stop if you are already nearby; not a destination on its own.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a heritage centre or visitor attraction

Kilmihil is a working parish village with a holy well, not a tourist site. The well and the old graveyard are free, unstaffed and quiet. That is the point of them.

Coming for the coast

Kilmihil is inland. For the Atlantic - cliffs, beaches, Loop Head - you want the coast road west and south through Doonbeg, Quilty or Kilkee. Use Kilmihil as a back-country stop, not a seaside one.

Visiting on a random day expecting a session or a match

West-Clare pub music and GAA fixtures both run to their own calendar, not a tourist one. Ask locally or check the Clare GAA fixtures before driving out hoping.

Getting there.

By car

Inland west Clare, on the R483 between Kilrush (about 20 minutes south) and the Ennis direction to the north-east. Ennis is roughly 35 km north-east. Cooraclare is about 15 minutes south-west; Lissycasey is a short run east toward the N68. Shannon Airport is about an hour.

By bus

Bus Éireann serves the village, with a service running several times a day to Kilrush. The 336 Limerick-Ennis-Kilrush-Kilkee route runs nearby. For Loop Head or the cliffs you will want your own car from here.