Connemara National Park, Ireland: The Best Outdoor Adventures

Connemara National Park is a beautiful, scenic part of North West Ireland. It’s the best place in Ireland for outdoor adventures, including hiking, gorge walking, cliff jumping and more. Here’s my guide to Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour outdoor adventures.

Last updated: February 2025

Connemara National Park is a beautiful part of North West Ireland in County Galway. It’s one of the best places in Ireland for hiking, and a huge range of other outdoor activities. If you enjoy being outside, with fun outdoor activities and beautiful mountain views, then your trip to Ireland should definitely include a few days in this stunning part of Ireland.

The area around Connemara National Park also has the stunning Killary Harbour. Killary Harbour is the only fjord in Ireland. It’s another beautiful place to visit, and an area that also offers amazing views and outdoor activities.

Where to stay to visit Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour

There’s a great range of accommodation around Connemara National Park. You can save money by staying slightly outside the boundaries of the National Park. I stayed just outside the village of Cong in a really cute little apartment. It was a great location for spending a few days exploring the region. Staying in apartment was really useful because it had a mini kitchen, so I could make picnic lunches to take on days out and also cook some meals. If you’d rather not cook, there are also lots of B&Bs and pubs as well. It doesn’t really matter exactly where you stay when you’re visiting this part of Ireland. All of the area is just so stunning, and the roads are easy to navigate, so you’ll have a great trip wherever you stay.

Do I need to hire a car to visit Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour?

Yes, you definitely need to hire a car to visit Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour. You need a car to visit any of the scenic spots in Ireland. It gives you so much more freedom to explore the wilderness than relying on very limited public transport in the area. There are lots of companies offering car rental from the airports in Ireland. Just remember that Ireland drives on the left, like the UK, which might be a shock if you’re coming from mainland Europe or the USA!

Having your own car means you can easily drive into the mountains and get to all the places for the best things to do in Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour. I visited these areas as part of a one-week road trip around Ireland, and it was an incredible week.

Killary Harbour: A Day of Outdoor Adventures

My day of outdoor activities in Killary Harbour was amazing, but also a bit crazy. I’m always into some outdoor adventure, so I’d researched a place called the Killary Adventure Company. This company offers lots of guided outdoor activities, where you can book to join a group with a professional guide. It’s a great way to do some more extreme outdoor activities that you might not have the confidence or equipment to do yourself. The company provides all the equipment you’ll need. And the professional guide means you’ll be safe and look after. I had an amazing time doing a day of activities with this company, but there are other companies offering similar things.

Originally I booked to do kayaking and gorge walking, with each activity taking a couple of hours each. There was also cliff jumping on offer as well. However, the weather had other ideas. The torrential rain that day meant the kayaking got replaced with their ‘turf challenge’. Although I think it would be better described as their ‘mud challenge’. The pictures describe it better than I can…

It was so much fun, and so different to anything else I’d done. I’m an outdoors-y person but often that’s limited to hiking in the outdoors. This was on another level. It was tiring, and you needed decent fitness levels. But it was super fun, especially once you realised that you were going to get super muddy and there wasn’t any point trying to be careful. There’s something so freeing about just launching yourself into a muddy bog. And guess who let go of the rope at the wrong time and ended up literally underwater in that muddy bog…

I’ve definitely never been so muddy in my life. It was so much fun. After the turf challenge we moved onto cliff jumping. We climbed up onto a platform and then jumped into the water of Killary Fjord. The cliff jumping helped me clean up a bit as it washed off some of the mud. And it was good fun – a definite adrenaline rush.

The gorge walking later in the day was great as well. The heavy rain meant that there was a lot of water flowing over the waterfall. So the water current was strong, and the rocks slippery, so it was hard work. But it was a great physical challenge, and gave spectacular views.

The gorge walking involved climbing up a very strong waterfall hanging onto ropes. The guide was brilliant, helping everyone in the group face any nervous and conquer the more difficult challenges. It was exhausting, but so rewarding.

The bruises and aches and pains took a while to go after my day of outdoor activity at Killary Harbour in Ireland! But it was amazing. The scenery around Killary Harbour was lovely too. After all of the activities, I took some time to go for a gentle walk around Killary Harbour which was lovely.

Hiking in Connemara National Park

ON my second day in the area, I drove into Connemara National Park for some hiking. Connemara National Park is one of the best places in Ireland to go hiking in the mountains. There are several mountains that you can climb. Some of these mountains are fairly easily accessible to anyone with a decent level of fitness, with clear and well-marked hiking trails. My day of hiking in Connemara National Park was another day of great outdoor adventure in this stunning area.

Head to Connemara National Park Visitor Centre for your day in the park. The visitor centre has plenty of parking and it’s easy to get to. There are plenty of hiking options from Connemara National Park Visitor Centre and they’re all well marked. One of the most popular, which is the one I did, is a 3km circular route and I extended it up to the top of the mountain. The views were just amazing, right from the start of the walk.

As I climbed up the mountain, the views just kept getting better and better.

Decent walking boots were definitely helpful for this walk. The ground was a bit marshy at times, and also near the top the path involved climbing over quite a few rocks so it was good to have decent footwear. And of course you’ll need a rain coat as well whenever you’re doing any hiking in Ireland. I was lucky and didn’t have too much rain on my day hiking in Connemara National Park. But the weather can be rainy, and can be very changeable. So make sure you’ve got all of the correct equipment, such as hiking boots, a waterproof coat, a map and a compass before doing any hiking in Connemara National Park.

On one side of the mountain was my first real encounter with Irish midges. I’d read about Irish midges in Connemara National Park in the summer, so I was expecting to find some, but up until that point I’d been lucky. But I visited in August which is peak midge season. But there was only one part of the walk that was bad. I think it was when it had just stopped raining and I was sheltered from the wind so they were swarming around a bit. But it wasn’t too bad and I don’t think I got bitten at all, so I’d recommend not letting tales of Irish midges put you off. The stunning views made hiking in Connemara National Park completely worth it despite a few midges.  

The weather then turned and it started to rain more, which made the midges disappear. But it also meant that the clouds obscured some of the views. But being submerged in a cloud in torrential rain just added to the experience, and it was magical seeing the views re-emerge as the cloud cleared.

The Connemara mountains felt very different to the other mountains and scenery I’d explored in Ireland. Before visiting Connemara National Park I’d spent some time in South West Ireland, around the Ring of Kerry and Killarney National Park. The mountains in Connemara were more barren and remote but in a really nice way, and the whole area felt a lot less tourist-y. It was great to spend a few days doing outdoor adventures in Connemara National Park.

Extending your trip to Ireland with a road trip around the best coastal scenery

You can easily spend more time around Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour. I spent 3 nights here, so I had two full days to explore. It was amazing, but I easily could have spent more time. But I only had a week in Ireland, and I wanted to see more places on my trip.

As well as seeing Connemara National Park and Killary Harbour, I spent 4 days in South West Ireland. I did an amazing road trip around some of the stunning coastal scenery, including the Dingle Peninsula, Killarney National Park, the Gap of Dunloe and the Ring of Kerry. You can read about my amazing Ireland road trip here. It’s hard to say which area I preferred. I thought it was great to see both areas and have the variety. Ireland is such a beautiful country and I had an amazing week there.

Hope you enjoyed my guide to outdoor adventures in Connemara National Park! Remember to check out my guide to an Ireland road trip visiting the Ring of Kerry and Gap of Dunloe. Or you could head to Dublin and check out Ireland’s capital city – check out my guide to Dublin in a weekend. For more road trips in beautiful scenery nearby, you can also visit Scotland. Check out my guides to visiting the Isle of Skye in one week, or spending time in Fort William, Scotland.