Day tours around Ireland – Discover The Cliffs of Moher
Irish day tours operate 365 days of the year visiting 6 iconic destinations. Our Day tours around Ireland are not to be missed, Our most poular tour is the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are Ireland’s most famous landmark with over 1 million visitors a year. They are situated in County Clare on the West coast of Ireland. The sheer Cliffs rise to 214 meters at their highest point and stretch along the Atlantic coast line for 8 km. The point on the cliffs most visited is O’Breins Tower which is situated about midway along the Cliffs.
O’Breins Tower is a round viewing tower which was built by Sir Cornelius O’Brein in 1835. Cornelious O’Brein was the local landlord and politician and unlike most landlords of his time treated his Tenants well giving them well maintained properties fair rents and during the famine he tried to provide help through famine relief and argued for more funds from Britain to alleviate the plight of the Irish people. He never did mass evictions as was practised by other landlords during this period and was ahead of his time with his vision. He believed that Tourism could be the route to develop the local economy and bring people out of poverty. This was his reason for building the tower, it is situated midway along the cliffs and on a clear day affords views of the Aran Islands, Galway bay, the Maum Turk mountains and the Twelve Pins. The public are free to take cliff top hikes but there is only a guard rail for a short distance so caution is advised.
The Cliffs are composed of rocks formed 300 million years ago consisting of bands of sandstone shale and siltstone. The rock layers are rich in fossil formations and are rich as a source for the study of deltaic deposition through deep water systems. The Base of the cliffs are dotted with caves sea stacks and sea stumps created by erosion of the cliffs over the centuries. The area surrounding the cliffs is the Burren which is a karst region and has a very individual eco system. It has a barren appearance but three quarters of Ireland’s species of flowers are found in the Burren. This area forms the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark which is a member of the UNESCO Geoparks network.
The original visitors centre at the Cliffs of Moher was built in 1978 but with numbers swelling from 100,000 in 1978 to 250,000 by 1988and with Dublin tours to the Cliffs it was seen as inadequate so plans were initiated to build a new centre. There was a design competition which resulted in the plan for the centre to be built into a hill so as not to take from the aspect of the cliffs. Construction didn’t start on the new centre until 2005 and it was completed in 2007. There has been constant investment in the Cliffs coastal walks, the visitor centre and car parks to facilitate the growing number of tourists visiting the Cliffs. This year sees the opening of a €300,000 cliffs of Moher exhibition.
Irish Day Tours are Irelands premier day tour company. We run day tours around Ireland, we will transport you to the cliffs and back in a day while taking in many of the other attractions in the area to fill your day. Extreme Ireland also bring groups Kayaking around the base of the cliffs as part of our Wild Atlantic way tours.
