f you need a break from the bar scene (or the hangover scene), taking a day to visit the Cliffs of Moher might be in order.

Check the weather first. We went on a rainy, cold day when strong winds and horrible weather closed access to the cliffs early. 

1. Things to see

There are various day-trip buses that will take you to the cliffs. The best part wasn’t the cliffs, but the stops along the way. We stopped at some smaller cliffs (xxx), where some great photo ops and scenery.

A castle, where supposedly, if you walk around it counter-clockwise you can re-gain your virginity.

Plenty of thatched roof dwellings and small villages along the way, and on the way back a stop at a great shop with serious wool sweaters and excellent clothing for both genders, and of course a pub stop to get lunch and a beer.

If you get a good tour guide they’ll entertain you with a lot of canned but interesting stories. One that stuck out was how they mate the sheep. When you put a male sheep in a pen with a bunch of females, the farmer wants to be efficient as possible with mating. However, unless he’s going to stay up watching all night he can’t really tell which female sheep the male tried to mate with. Instead – they put a pink paint on the underside of the male – and the next morning just look for the females with pink paint on their backside – and then remove them from the pen until they can see if they were successfully impregnated.

Amazing to see how poor quality the land is, how generations of people brought seaweed up from the ocean to get a thin layer of soil to raise crops

The penny walls, where workers were paid a penny a day to build stacked rock walls – even over places they weren’t needed (the pennies were needed) is also interesting.

When we arrived at the cliffs there was a wind advisory that only gave us 30 min to see the cliffs. This was LONG enough as it was bitterly cold, rainy, and we could barely make it to the top of the cliffs for a few photos before fleeing back to the relative warmth of the bus. I don’t freeze easily – but this was truly miserable. Supposedly weather bad enough to close the cliffs only happens a few times each year, we were lucky enough to experience it. Although I would have preferred better photos, we at least got an adventure.

The cliffs also have a darker side, on average 3 people jump to their deaths teach year. About 30% of them were international visitors. 60% are male and the average age was 34.2 years.

On the ciffs

The rocky coast

Stops along the way

Posing in front of the castle that gives your virginity back

You’ve arrived!

Lonely house in the countryside

Penny walls (famine walls) and other sights

Posing

3. Spend

A pretty inexpensive day trip to get out of Dublin and see some excellent coastal geography.

7. Tips

The advantages of going on a rainy day are that there will probably be fewer people on your bus, you’ll feel less like cattle, and if the weather isn’t too bad you can get some moody shots of the cliffs.

Look, don’t leap.