Oughterard: Find hotels for your stay

Oughterard offers several starting points for planning your trip: heritage projects, trails along Lough Corrib and outdoor activities. When comparing the options, specific differences in theme, season and route length can help you plan your stay around your interests.

Heritage projects in Oughterard

The Oughterard Kids’ Heritage Trail and Podcast Project comprises a heritage trail booklet and a series of podcasts. Students researched, wrote and recorded the podcasts. The project invites locals and visitors to discover Oughterard’s history through the places, people and stories that have shaped it.

Another digital option is the Oughterard Heritage Walk, also known as the “Golden Mile Storymap”, which lets you experience the heritage walk digitally. The projects have different focuses: one features a booklet and podcasts created through a student-led project, while the other presents a heritage walk digitally.

Trails and trips along Lough Corrib

The Western Way starts in Oughterard and follows the shore of Lough Corrib for about ten kilometres northwest towards Maum. Another route is the scenic Lough Corrib route, which runs for 13 kilometres along the lakeshore from the village square in Oughterard to the wooded Hill of Doon. The two routes differ in their destinations and lengths: Maum and about ten kilometres on the Western Way, and Hill of Doon and 13 kilometres on the Lough Corrib route. Check local road conditions before setting out on this route.

On the lake, Corrib Cruises offers trips from Oughterard to Cong, among other options, from June to September. Check the seasonal timetable before your trip. These options offer different experiences: a boat trip with a specified season, or routes distinguished by direction, destination and length.

Oughterard is considered the main angling centre on Lough Corrib. If you plan to fish, check the applicable regulations and seasons separately before your trip.

Community run and Corribdale Park

Oughterard parkrun is a free, friendly, weekly five-kilometre community run that is open to everyone. You can walk, jog, run, volunteer or spectate. Corribdale Park offers a different way to spend time outdoors: it has a children’s playground, a youth area, a walking and running path, a sensory garden, a wooded area and open green spaces.

Near Oughterard, the Galway Wind Way in Galway Wind Park offers 48 kilometres of recreational trails across six different routes. If you plan to use these trails, check their availability and access conditions in advance.

More trails in the wider Galway destination

In the wider Galway destination, Coole Park offers two trails of different lengths. The easy Family Trail is 1.75 kilometres long and passes the site of the former house and the walled garden on its way to the Autograph Tree. The 4.5-kilometre Seven Woods Trail passes a viewpoint overlooking Coole Lake and extensive wetlands. The two trails therefore differ in both length and the sights described along the way.

The Diamond Hill Walk in Connemara National Park offers another distance: the trail is 6.5 kilometres long and leads to the 445-metre summit of Diamond Hill. Galway’s cultural attractions also include Kylemore Abbey. The abbey began in the 1860s as a lakeside castle commissioned by Mitchell Henry for his wife, Margaret. These destinations across Galway add further, distinct travel ideas to the local heritage and Corrib themes.

Discover more destinations: Leenane, Carna, Castlerea, Kilkieran, Salthill, Cornamona, Dunmore, Indreabhán

For the wider travel overview: Galway.