About Ennistymon Falls
Ennistymon Falls (or Ennistymon Cascades) is pretty much an urban waterfall on the River Inagh in the heart Ennistymon (North Clare’s largest town).
Being surrounded by buildings and roads in the centre of town, it wasn’t surprising that there were some man-made modifications both in and downstream of the falls for the purposes of diversion and harnessing.
That said, it was basically a waterfaller’s excuse to make a brief detour to the town while exploring the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark.
By the way, the Cliffs of Moher could very well be the Republic of Ireland’s most popular natural attraction (typically getting over a million visitors per year).
So there’s definitely quite a bit of activity both in this town as well as the rest of North Clare around the Cliffs of Moher as well as The Burren Way.
In any case, the visiting the Ennistymon Cascades is pretty much an exercise in walking around the town centre of Ennistymon.
There are many different parking options (both free and paid), and I’d imagine where you park depends on the traffic situation as it can get quite busy here.
We then walked a loop that pretty much went by the car park fronting the entrance to the entrance to the Falls Hotel and Spa (see directions below).
After passing by a pen containing some grazing mules, we then went onto a riverside path that went upstream towards both the intermediate and final Ennistymon Cascades.
Once at the main waterfall, we were essentially looking at the waterfall’s profile from what seemed to be someone’s driveway.
The Ennistymon River did look somewhat polluted and dirty given all the developments around it.
Nevertheless, it was still a relaxing spot to enjoy an urban waterfall while it seemed like everyone else was fighting traffic in the town centre.
Upon having our fill of the Ennistymon Falls, we then went up some narrow streets to get back to the city centre.
Back in the streets of the town centre, we had the option of exploring the town more as we pleased or finishing the loop to regain our car (we had parked on the north side of town).
Overall, we had spent about 35 minutes away from the car, which encompassed the route described above.
Authorities
The Ennistymon Falls is in the town of Ennistymon in County Clare, Ireland. It is managed by the Clare County Council. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Visit Clare website.
The Ennistymon Falls or Ennistymon Cascades reside right in the town centre of Ennistymon.
To get to town, I’d recommend just routing to the town on any GPS navigation app (such as GoogleMaps or Waze) since the town is significant enough for the software to get you here via mostly the main roads.
In our case, we drove from Kenmare to Ennistymon via primarily a combination of the the N22 and the N69 (the latter of which went around Tralee and towards Tarbert) before going on the N67 right to the Tarbert Ferry.
We then had a pre-booked ticket (bought online) the Tarbert-Killimer Ferry (departing every hour on the half-hour taking about 20 minutes) so we could get across the Shannon Estuary.
After getting to Killimer, we would then follow N67 Road west towards and through the town centre of Kilrush before taking R483 towards Cooraclare.
That said, GoogleMaps does tend to prefer shortest distance and/or toll avoidance over the most sensible roads so that’s something to keep in mind.
So GoogleMaps actually insisted that we take the shortest distance route via the L2054 and L2050 Roads, but we found out the hard way that they were very narrow (and often single-lane) roads.
Indeed, we’re living proof that blindly following GPS apps won’t save you much time (if any) compared to the longer but easier route along a combination of N and R roads.
In fact, I’d only consider taking L roads as a last resort if necessary, but being able to differentiate between these roads requires a little bit of pre-planning.
While you could argue that reading and responding to these junctions as you encounter then, I know it gets difficult to make accurate decisions on-the-fly like that (and in fact, we got it wrong).
Anyways, from Kilrush, we’d continue on the R483 until it merges with the N67 again, and then follow the N67 all the way into Ennistymon.
Once in Ennistymon, you pretty much have to find street parking or public parking in one of the designated spots in the town centre (definitely avoid the spots designated “No Parking”).
We managed to find an open spot towards the north side of town near the St Andrew’s Church (Teach Ceoil).
However, there’s also a closer lot (at the Glencree Car Park), which is on the access road leading to the Falls Hotel and Spa.
Note that this drive took us around 4 hours (with the waiting and transport via ferry), which gives you an idea of the time scales involved.
For context, Ennistymon is about 8km (about 15 minutes drive) east of Liscannor, about 13km (15 minutes drive) southeast of Doolin, 26km (30 minutes drive) northwest of Ennis, 47km (under an hour drive) northwest of Shannon, 65km (an hour drive) northwest of Limerick, about 99km (90 minutes drive) southwest of Galway, and 270km (over 3 hours drive) southwest of Dublin.
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Long video showing cascades downstream of the main one starting with a view of the hotel and then ending at some middle cascades
Right to left sweep from near the end of a private driveway with a closeup look at the uppermost tier of the cascades
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