County Clare and the Burren - Ireland 2014 - page 416

Lisdoonvarna
This town of 1,000 (4.3 miles/7 km from Doolin) was known for centuries for its
spa, its matchmakers, and its traditional folk music festivals. Today, it's pretty sleepy,
except for a few weeks in September, during its Matchmaking Festival
( www.matchmakerireland.com ), which partially inspired the 1997 film The Matchmaker .
The nearest ATMs are in Lahinch or Ennistymon. Still, it's more of a town than Doolin
and, apart from festival time, less touristy.
Sleeping in Lisdoonvarna: $$ Ballinsheen House is the best value in town. It's
perched on a hill with five tastefully decorated rooms and a pleasant, glassed-in breakfast
terrace (Sb-€43-55, Db-€66-90, “Superior” Db-€86-110, Tb-€90-118, Wi-Fi, parking,
5-minute walk north of town on N-67 Galway Road, tel. [phone], mobile
087-124-1872, www.ballinsheen.com , [e-mail] , Mary Gardiner).
Eating in Lisdoonvarna: The Roadside Tavern is a favorite local hangout with filling
pub grub, great atmosphere, and occasional traditional-music sessions (daily, tel. 065/
707-4084, on N-67 in town behind the Spa Hotel, hard-to-miss bright red).
The Burren
Literally the “rocky place,” the Burren is just that. This 10-square-mile limestone plateau,
a ▲▲ sight,issobarrenthatadisappointed Cromwellian surveyorofthe1650sdescribed
it as “a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor a tree to hang
him, nor soil enough to bury him.” But he wasn't much of a botanist, because the Burren
is in fact a unique ecosystem, with flora that has managed to adapt since the last Ice Age,
10,000 years ago. It's also rich in prehistoric and early Christian sites. This limestone land
is littered with hundreds of historic stone structures, including dozens of Iron Age stone
forts. When the first human inhabitants of the Burren came about 6,000 years ago, they
cut down its trees with shortsighted slash-and-burn methods, which accelerated erosion
of the topsoil (already scoured to a thin layer by glaciers)—making those ancient people
partially responsible for the stark landscape we see today.