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Sustainable Connemara and Galway Bay Rail Tour from Dublin
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From €161 per person
This is a full day out from Dublin by rail and coach, taking you west into Connemara - one of the most distinctive landscapes in Ireland. You’ll roll through lakes, mountains, stone walls and thatched cottages, stop for photos at Kylemore Abbey, and spend time in Clifden before travelling back along the shores of Galway Bay through the Irish-speaking villages of Inverin and Spiddal.
The tour departs from Dublin Heuston Station. Your qualified driver-guide leads the coach sections, and a dedicated host travels with you on the trains. You’ll have reserved seats throughout.
The train arrives into Galway at 10:05, where you join the coach tour of Connemara.
Your first stop through the region is Maam Cross - Connemara’s crossroads - where you’ll find a replica of the cottage used in the 1952 John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara film “The Quiet Man”, which was filmed in this area.
From Maam Cross the tour heads out to Leenane and on through the mountains to Kylemore Abbey and Letterfrack. Kylemore Abbey is an 18th-century castle now in the care of Benedictine nuns, who run a pottery, gift shop and restaurant on site - this is your lunch stop. Letterfrack sits within one of Ireland’s major national parks.
From there you continue to Clifden, a well-known touring town that’s been drawing walkers, cyclists, hikers and fishermen for generations. On the road out of Clifden you’ll pass the Dan O’Hara pre-famine farm (circa 1840), fronted by a replica of an ancient Irish crannóg or lake dwelling.
The coach then loops back through Screeb, Costello and Rossaveal - the departure point for ferries to the Aran Islands and a working fishing port. This stretch takes you through the Gaeltacht, where Irish is still the everyday language of the people who live here.
The journey home follows the shores of Galway Bay through the Gaeltacht villages of Inverin and Spiddal, with views across the Atlantic towards the limestone of the Burren and the hills of Clare. There’s a craft village and the Standun sweater shop in Spiddal if you want to browse. You’ll be returned to Galway Station before your train back to Dublin.
Note: on certain days, the Clifden section of the route may be adjusted for operational reasons - your host or driver will let you know.
Meeting point: Check in 20 minutes before the train departure time. Look for the rep in a bright yellow jacket at the customer service desk in Heuston Station. Check in at 7:10am - the train departs at 7:35am and does not wait.
The 7:35am departure from Heuston is firm. The itinerary says it does not wait, and it means it - check in at 7:10am at the customer service desk, where the rep in a yellow jacket will be waiting. It is an early start but it means you arrive in Galway at 10:05 with a full day ahead, and you will be glad of the hours.
Maam Cross is where Connemara’s main roads split. The N59 divides here - Clifden to the north, Galway east, the Maam Valley south. The Quiet Man cottage replica at Peacockes Hotel is a small charming stop: the primary filming locations for the 1952 John Ford film were in Cong, Co. Mayo, but Connemara’s landscape appeared throughout. Pull in, see the cottage, buy a coffee at the hotel if you need one, and keep moving - the better scenery is still ahead.
Lunch at Kylemore Abbey is the practical choice. The Benedictine nuns who have cared for the abbey since 1920 run a restaurant, pottery, and gift shop on site. The abbey was built as a Victorian castle by a railway baron for his wife in 1868 - the exterior, reflected in the lake at Pollanabawn, is the photograph people know. The walk around the lake justifies the stop even without the abbey interior.
Clifden is the capital of Connemara because nothing else nearby is large enough to be the capital of anything. It was drawn on a map by a landlord called John D’Arcy in 1812 - grid streets on 17,000 acres of bog and rock. The Sky Road loops out to the west past the ruins of D’Arcy’s Gothic-revival castle and onto a headland where the Atlantic and the Twelve Bens both announce themselves at once. The Derrygimlagh bog south of town is where Marconi sent the first commercial transatlantic wireless signal in 1907 and where Alcock and Brown crash-landed their plane after the first non-stop transatlantic flight in 1919. Your coach stop here is likely brief - it is a town worth returning to for longer.
The Galway Bay coast road through Inverin and Spiddal is living Gaeltacht. Irish is the first language in both villages - at the bar, at the shop, on the road signs. Inverin is where TG4, Ireland’s national Irish-language television broadcaster, has run from since 1996, sited here on purpose because you cannot run an Irish-language broadcaster from somewhere that does not speak Irish. Spiddal has a craft village at Ceardlann an Spidéil across from the main beach - potters, weavers, jewellers, and Búilín Blasta café in the middle. The Standun shop the itinerary mentions is the sweater and knitwear shop that has been on the road through Spiddal for decades. If you want a genuine Aran sweater rather than a tourist-district approximation, this is a reliable place to buy one.