Wild Beauty: County Clare: Atlantic Way: the Burren, Loop Head & West Clare Coast

A jacket-pocket guide to County Clare - one of the most remarkable coastlines in Europe, and one of the least understood.The Burren is 250 square kilometres of carboniferous limestone plateau where Arctic plants grow alongside Mediterranean ones in the same crack in the same rock. People have been farming it for six thousand years. The dolmens, ring forts, and field systems are not relics - they are part of a continuous story. Walk it in May and the wildflowers are something you will not forget.The Cliffs of Moher rise 214 metres from the Atlantic. Most visitors see them from the car park. This guide takes you to the sections that the road signs don't mention: the clifftop walk north from Doolin where you have the cliffs largely to yourself, the viewpoints south of the visitor centre, the waterfall that appears after heavy rain and drops straight into the sea.Loop Head Peninsula is the part of Clare that extends furthest into the Atlantic. Kilkee, Carrigaholt, the lighthouse at the very tip of the headland - this is the coast the novels are written about. The light here in September is not like light anywhere else.This guide covers seven walks, from the easy Flaggy Shore stroll to the full Loop Head circuit. It lists camping and campervan sites that don't appear in the major booking engines - the kind that locals know. It recommends places to eat and sleep across a range of budgets, chosen because the food is good and the welcome is real.The photographs are the author's own, taken on the coast this guide describes.The Wild Beauty series covers the Wild Atlantic Way one region at a time. Each volume is small enough for a jacket pocket, specific enough to be useful, and written by someone who knows the coast well.The characters in the You Deserve This novels live on this coast. Kilcarra is a fictional village in a real landscape. These guides are for readers who want to walk the same ground.