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DELPHI
Westport to Clifden and Galway.
This, the regular “Connemara-tour,” is described the reverse way pp. 171-83, where the Public-car services (fares included in the circular tickets) from Westport are also given pp. 173-9. Travellers wishing to get on to Leenane the same day that they leave Dublin must hire
Westport to Delphi, 20 m., and Bundorra., 21 ½ m. By sending word to Leenane, visitors may have a boat to meet them at Bundorra.
Delphi is the sweetest bit of scenery in Connemara, and this route – far ahead of the ordinary car route – forms the most effective approach to it. The road is fair but not suitable for cyclists.
The car-route to Clifden (p. 183) is followed for the first 5 ½ miles, at which distance, a little short of Lough Moher, we turn up a narrower and rougher road to the right. The mountains at the head of Killary Bay become conspicuous during the ascent – chief amongst them the Devil’s Mother, to the left of which a flat-topped range just hides the higher dividing line between Mayo and Galway. Then our road leads to the little hamlet of Druman where amid trees is a R.C. chapel. Behind it rise the Sheffry Hills, passing between which and a low-lying pastoral moorland on the left we reach (12 m.,) Sheffry Bridge, a charming spot where the stream, fringed with shrubs, issues from a deep combe on the right. On either side is a herdsman’s cottage. Beyond this our road, turning abruptly to the left, steeply slants up the side of an opposing ridge, forming a kind of terrace. Half-way up we see traces of a silver-lead mine that was once worked here. From the col (abt. 700 ft.) there is a good View northward to Nephin, and southward, of the fine deep valley that runs east and west from the Westport and Leenane road to Delphi and the Dhu Lough. Just beneath us is Lough Tawnyard, a favourite with anglers, and diversified by a well wooded island.
Hence, our road turns westward and drops abruptly to the bottom of the valley, joining at the foot another track, by which cars might proceed into the main Leenane road but for the bridge over the Erriff being impassable. As we proceed, the valley narrows and the hills become steeper on both sides. A ridge on the left may remind the Westmorland tourist of the famous Striding Edge of Helvellyn, while the approach to Dhu Lough bears a decided resemblance to that to the Cumberland lake of Buttermere. A huge gable-ended stone on the hill-side to the left, too, might appropriately be christened the Kirkstone. The towering peak on the left is Tievenabinia ; on the right Glenammarn, and in front, across Dhu Lough, Glencullen.
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