About Westport
Westport is one of the few planned towns in Ireland. The architect James Wyatt laid it out in the 1780s, with a tree-lined Mall along the canalised Carrowbeg river and an octagonal central square. Two hundred years later, the layout still works. Westport regularly tops national polls for prettiest town in Ireland.
It is also one of the best food towns west of the Shannon. Restaurants like Pantry & Corkscrew and the kitchens around the Octagon punch above the town's size, and the pubs have proper trad sessions most nights in summer. Outside the town, you have the Greenway, a 42 kilometre cycle and walking path along an old railway line, plus the climb up Croagh Patrick, plus boat trips out to Clare Island and Inishturk.
Westport is on the train line from Dublin, three and a quarter hours from Heuston. Knock Airport is forty five minutes by road.
Stories & guides
Reading from Westport and beyond
Wild Nephin National Park from Westport: Ireland's bog wilderness
There are forty-five minutes between Westport's coffee shops and one of the most genuinely remote places in Ireland, and most visitors who pass…
Old Head Beach, Louisburgh: the day trip from Westport most visitors skip
Westport gets the tourist, and fair enough, it's earned it. But twenty-five kilometres south-west, past Louisburgh and out to the western arm of Clew…
Where to eat and drink in Westport, County Mayo
Westport has the food scene of a place twice its size, and it doesn't make a big deal about it. A Michelin Bib Gourmand twelve kilometres down the…
Westport House: the estate, the grounds, and what to expect
The house sits lower than you'd expect. Coming up the driveway from Westport, through the trees, you're half-braced for something that announces…
Matt Molloy's Bar and the Westport trad scene
There's a green pub on Bridge Street in Westport that you'll find entirely by accident the first time, even if you've been trying to find it on…
Grace O'Malley, the Pirate Queen of Clew Bay
She was fifty-six years old when she sailed from Connacht to Greenwich to negotiate face to face with Queen Elizabeth I. Neither spoke the other's…