Doolin is barely a village. Three pubs, a few B&Bs, a campsite, a pier. What it has is a reputation: for the best trad music sessions in the country, played most nights in summer in McGann's, McDermott's and O'Connor's. It is the kind of place that feels small for two days then enormous on a Saturday night when every visitor on the Wild Atlantic Way crowds into the same three rooms.

From Doolin pier, ferries run daily through the season to all three Aran Islands. Inisheer, the smallest and closest, is a fifteen minute crossing. The Cliffs of Moher are a long but spectacular cliff walk away, or a few minutes by car. Lisdoonvarna, the spa town that hosts Europe's biggest matchmaking festival every September, is fifteen minutes inland.

Doolin is best reached by car. There is no train station, and buses are limited to a few services a day from Galway and Ennis.