Trad Music and the Atlantic: Clare to Connemara

Editor's note

The first night is at Clahane, outside Liscannor on the Clare coast, with Miltown Malbay a short drive south. The town has held the Willie Clancy Summer School every year since 1973, in memory of the uilleann piper it is named for; in the week beginning the first Saturday of July nearly a thousand students arrive from all over the world for classes in Irish music and dance, which makes it the largest traditional music summer school anywhere. Outside that week the pubs still carry the sessions. Out on the coast, Spanish Point takes its name from Armada ships wrecked off it in 1588; its Blue Flag strand runs for over a kilometre and is one of the better-known surf breaks in Clare.

Editor's note

Two nights at Ballaghaline, outside Doolin. The village has three pubs with sessions most nights of the year: Gus O'Connor's, trading since 1832 and a music fixture since Gus O'Connor's own tenure from 1956; McDermott's, run by the same family since 1876; and McGann's, opened in 1975 by the brothers Tommy and Tony McGann. Doolin drew musicians long before it drew visitors. Back at Liscannor, St. Brigid's Well has been in continuous use since before Christianity, its covered walkway lined with generations of votive offerings, a kilometre from the Cliffs of Moher. Off the coast lies Inis Oírr, smallest of the Aran Islands: the Plassey rusting where she was driven ashore in 1960, O'Brien's Castle inside a prehistoric ring fort, and an island loop of under an hour by bike.

Editor's note

A single night on a farm at Drummin, outside Gort in County Galway, with the Gort River Walk close by at a little over three and a half kilometres. Nearby stands Thoor Ballylee, the derelict 15th-century Anglo-Norman tower house Yeats bought for £35 and restored in 1919, living in it until 1929 and writing his way out of it: The Tower, The Winding Stair and Coole Park and Ballylee were all composed inside those walls, and his own inscription is set into the stone outside. A short walk away is Coole Park, Lady Gregory's estate and the seedbed of the Irish Literary Revival. The house is gone; the walled garden and the Autograph Tree remain, with the initials of Yeats, Shaw and Synge cut into it.

Editor's note

The last two nights are on the River Road at An Spidéal, on Galway Bay. At the entrance to the village, Ceardlann an Spidéil is a working craft village where resident artisans weave, throw pots, cut stained glass and make Celtic jewellery on site; on a clear day the Aran Islands are visible across the bay. The ferry for Inis Meáin leaves from Rossaveal. Synge spent his summers on the island between 1898 and 1902, in a cottage at Carrowntemple now preserved as Teach Synge, and its Irish speech, currach fishermen and bare limestone fed into The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea. Cathaoir Synge is the stone seat on the island's west coast; Dún Chonchúir is the largest stone fort on the Aran Islands.