Aleria's Adventures

The marina at Kilrush Kilrush has so much potential The River Shannon divides Clare from Kerry; it is Ireland’s longest and largest river. The mouth of the Shannon River is wide and inviting, stretching between Kerry Head on the Southside and Loop Head on the Northside. You really need time to be able to explore her lower reaches as there is little opportunity to find shelter before the town of Kilrush some 30 km up in County Clare on the Northside of the River. The Shannon is a powerboat paradise and a very popular tourist attraction for river boating. Consequently, there is a lot of information available about the River, especially from Limerick and beyond. The lower Shannon has Ireland’s only pod of resident bottlenose dolphins. More than 100 dolphins have been identified using the Shannon estuary. The success rate of seeing dolphins here is reported to be better than 98%.

Islands with a checkered history The Inishkea Islands (Goose Islands, Irish: Inis Gé)  are situated off the Mullet peninsula in Erris, which was recently voted as the best place to go wild in Ireland. We wholeheartedly concur. It was our first visit of many more already planned. The Inishkeas were abandoned in the 1930s along with many other islands on this inhospitable coast. They are slowly returning to their wild state. Having gone ashore and felt the spirituality of this place, I am certain its residents over the millenia were one with the sea as we, too, hoped to experience. There are two main islands - Inishkea North and Inishkea South. A small third island called Rusheen lies just off the main village on Inishkea South, and several smaller islets trail from its tail.  The islands are just off the mainland coast along the Wild Atlantic Way and offer some protection to the Mullet from the power of the wild Atlantic waters. They are now home to a large number of bird sp