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Dominated by two mountain ranges, Connemara is exceptionally beautiful. The Twelve Bens and Maam Turks glower over vast open areas of bog wilderness, while to the southwest the land breaks up into myriad tiny islands linked by causeways, slipping out into the ocean. The whole area has superb beaches, with huge sweeps of opalescent white sand washed by clear blue water. Chance upon good weather here and you feel you've hit paradise; even on the hottest of days the beaches are never crowded. This is country you visit for its scenery rather than its history. There is little evidence of medieval power in Connemara, either ecclesiastical or secular, beyond a few castles along the shore of Lough Corrib and the occasional one further west. The great exception is the profusion of monastic remains dotted over the little islands off the west coast. Mainland settlements up until the nineteenth century were widely scattered, and the area has always been sparsely populated, due to the poverty of the land. There's never been much to attract marauders or colonizers, and any incursions have involved a battle against the terrain as much as against the people. It's easy to see how such a land would remain under the control of clans like the O'Flaherties for centuries, while gentler landscapes bowed to the pressure of foreign rule. In the famine years the area suffered some of the worst of the misery, and a thinly peopled land was depopulated further as people chose to escape starvation by emigration. Continued economic deprivation and isolation have meant that an ancient rural way of life has continued for far longer here, so Connemara is still Irish-speaking, the largest of the Gaeltacht areas. A Gaeltacht summer school is held in Spiddal , and Casla (Costelloe) is the home of Raidio na Gaeltachta radio station (556m MW, broadcasting daily 8am-7.30pm). English is spoken too, however, and the only difficulty for the visitor is that the signs on the roads, and on some buses, are often in Irish only. For all its beauty, the dramatic mountain landscape of west Galway is surprisingly undeveloped in terms of tourism, owing in part to the infamous Irish weather and in part to the fact that walking has not been the popular recreation in Ireland that it is in other, more urbanized European countries. If you're in search of solitude, you won't have to go far to find it
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