Wild Atlantic Way

They

don't call it the Wild Atlantic Way for nothing.

Wild things happen.

Wild things.

Get off the wild Atlantic way and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Today's podcast takes you to one of the seven wonders of Ireland.

Hi everyone, and welcome again to the Traveling in Ireland podcast.

I know that I mentioned it a few episodes back when I was talking about the Seven Wonders of Ireland.

It was one of the places on that list.

But it's a place that a lot of people haven't heard of, even though it is right off that wild Atlantic way, not terribly far from some of those really well-known sites like the Cliffs of Moher and Bunratty Castle.

So Irene, thank you so much for joining me today so we can share a little bit more about this amazing site that you have such a connection to.

Oh, hi, Jodi, and thanks for having me on.

What about you? That's interesting because I always thought I would like to go to Galway, but I've never gotten that far.

I spent a lot of time in West Cork and a part of West Cork that's become known as the Wild Atlantic Way.

There are hiking trails and biking trails and so on.

And the The Wild Atlantic Way is just absolutely gorgeous and lovely.

And it's full of small seaside villages and friendly people.

And the scenery is stunning.

And some of the famous scenery that you hear about, the Cliffs of Moher, for example, are these giant cliffs that just drop flat down into the ocean.

They're a part of that Wild Atlantic Way landscape.

I think, look outside of all that, PJ, right? we're living in a time as well where people are talking about cost of living crisis and we see that and can sell the price of property and stuff like that and trying to attract people to can sell even to live there and stuff like that.

But if we were to create more tourism in the sense that, you know, linking up, it is on the way, by the way, by the way, this route is on the wild Atlantic way.

It is, it is.

So if people were to get off at Cork Airport, I mean, you can get off I heard people yesterday talking about being in Spain and they go in the morning and they go cycling along, whatever.

Now, we don't have that opportunity.

We have people getting off buses and they're saying this is the wild Atlantic way and you're coming down the road and there's no effort.

It is.

Look, isn't it difficult? I'm not going to say for one minute that it's not a difficult job.

That is for sure.

And I'm presuming, Heidi, when you mention your brother had a love of nature, that was one of the reasons that brought him to Clare and West Clare out the West Coast and along the Wild Atlantic Way.

He would have seen a lot of scenery.

Yes, for some time he had already mentioned that he wanted to visit Ireland and he actually loved music and he would send me this Irish Christian music.

So these things, you know, while individuals who invested in nursing homes or hotels or, you know, Western seaboard accommodations over the years got tax breaks.

Those tax breaks themselves led to 17 million people coming to Ireland to do the Wild Atlantic Way or whatever the numbers are.

So they rise all boats.

They're not to be raised against.

Moher.

Yeah, they call it the Wild Atlantic, and we got to see firsthand why they say that.

We went to the Cliffs of Moher.

We saw it from the ocean and then from Martin Guerra's farm right there.

Absolutely, yeah.

Uh, uh, I think that was brought home to us, in particular, as we were cycling over the Burren a few days ago, that we took a road, we've cycled up around that way before, and we've usually come down the Wild Atlantic Way route and maybe gone into Lisdoonvarna, but definitely always gone to Doolin.

But we decided to take a different route as we were coming across County Clare there a couple of days ago, and we went through the middle of the Burren, and it's, it's unique in the world.

You know, there's nowhere like the Burren anywhere else in the world, and it was absolutely gorgeous.