Co Clare is essential, profound, and just plain wonderful

From the Burren to the Cliffs of Moher, Tony Clayton-Lea is stone mad for the charms of Co Clare.

CO CLARE isn’t what you’d call short of Irish character or Irish history.

It does, it’s fair to say, have a wealth of the kind of essential Irishness that natives are perhaps blasé about, and that visitors view as profound (or odd, or just plain awesome).