Every October, while Alpine farmers bring their cows down the mountain for winter, the Burren does the opposite. Here, cattle are marched up the hills – an annual reversal that sounds like madness but makes perfect sense once you’ve stood on the limestone. What looks like bare rock is in fact 720 square kilometres of karst, porous enough to drain in minutes, warm enough to hold summer heat. In winter, frost sweetens the wiry grasses, springs bubble back to life, and the cows, apparently satisfied with the arrangement, settle in.
It’s this unlikely system – officially recognised in 2019 as part of Ireland’s Intangible Cultural Heritage – that the Burren gathers to celebrate each October with The Winterage Weekend. On Sunday, October 26th, Frank McCormack, a local farmer, will lead his herd through the stone-walled passes, trailed by hundreds of walkers in the annual cattle drive. Around it, farm walks, Burren beef burgers from food trucks and the Burren Food Fayre make a festival of the region’s produce, from Linnalla ice cream to Burren Blossom honey.
The beef, raised on winter pasture and fattened on limestone grass, ends up on the €125 tasting menu at Homestead Cottage – a 200-year-old cottage outside Doolin where Robbie McCauley and his French wife Sophie have turned low beams and turf smoke into Michelin-star dining. They opened in 2021; by 2023 the inspectors had already found their way up the boreen and handed over a star.
[ ‘It is a bit scary’: How the couple behind Homestead Cottage won a Michelin starOpens in new window ]
The food is rooted in place – Flaggy Shore oysters on the half-shell, mackerel cured with blackcurrant and horseradish, Liscannor crab brightened with radish and buttermilk. Burren beef – Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn – is dry-aged on site for up to three weeks. McCauley favours these slower-growing breeds for their marbling and flavour, and says they taste of the Burren itself – deeper, more complex than the high-yield crosses that dominate Irish beef. Vegetables and fruit come from the restaurant’s three-acre garden, closing the loop from limestone pasture to plate.
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At Gregans Castle, in a beautiful diningroom that looks out on to the Burren, head chef Jonathan Farrell offers a €110 five-course menu with plenty of choice. Mackerel tartare is brightened with fermented gooseberry, scallops arrive with beets and blackcurrants, and chicken thighs are pressed into a sauce supreme that could have come straight from Escoffier’s notebook. The Thornhill duck is a staple, dressed differently each season, and anything the gardeners can’t get on to a plate in time is pickled or preserved.
From the manicured gardens of Gregans it’s only a short hop to Lisdoonvarna, where Birgitta Hedin-Curtin’s Burren Smokehouse offers tours that end in a tasting of their distinctive smoked salmon. Along the same stretch, her husband, Peter, brews on a tiny commercial scale at the Roadside Tavern – Burren Gold, Amber, Black and the wild-yeast Euphoria, a gruit beer made without hops. Order the lamb stew with a pint of Burren Black and you will be set up for the day.
Once you’ve had your fill in Lisdoonvarna, the coast isn’t far. At New Pier, boats land lobsters straight to Linnane’s Lobster Bar, run by Conor Graham and Mark Commins, where they head straight to the kitchen. The menu stretches from their own Flaggy Shore oysters to seafood platters, but the real highlight might be the Flaggy Shore Oyster Experience (€55) – a 90-minute immersion in oyster bays, seaweeds and marine life that ends with a shucking lesson and oysters washed down with wine.
Clare stretches the season further than Kerry, west Cork or Connemara – Linnane’s and Homestead Cottage stay open year-round, and Gregans Castle shuts only for a couple of months from late November. North Clare has its destination restaurants and a touch of luxury at Gregans, but more and more it is somewhere people come simply to switch off.
For those who like their escape absolute, Summerage, Aoibheann McNamara’s Burren retreat, dispenses with wifi and street lights altogether. Cattle graze her 32 acres through winterage while an orchard, vegetable garden and greenhouse keep her Galway restaurant, Ard Bia, in produce. The idea is to rest with the rhythms of the land – though the absence of a signal may be what convinces you most quickly that you’ve really left the world behind.
The planting is overseen by Ciara Patterson, who also works with Common Knowledge in Kilfenora – a 50-acre social enterprise where sustainability is practised in the soil, the workshop and the kitchen. Founded by Harrison Gardner, Erin McClure and Fionn Kidney, it runs courses in building, furniture-making, cookery and fermentation, the sort of practical skills that make life more hands-on. There’s a 12-room guest house if you want to stay – either for a course or simply as a base – and a kitchen led by Andrew O’Halloran, whose Land & Lore dinners gather people monthly around whatever the garden and local producers are offering.
In the old market town of Ennistymon, where the river Inagh pitches itself over the Cascades, the same spirit runs through. You can lose an afternoon in the Salmon Bookshop for an eclectic selection of books and the occasional poetry reading, or stop for a crepe in Ooh La La. The Cheese Press, Sinéad Ní Ghairbhith’s cafe and deli, may be best known for its cheese toasties, but the shelves will keep you browsing, with artisan cheese, organic sourdough, local coffee, wine, assorted treats and interesting cards. It is as much a gathering place and hub for the community as it is a shop.
At Pot Duggan’s, a 19th-century pub where Darren Kirwan is head chef, the day starts with a cafe menu of breakfasts, coffee and light plates. Summer brought a series of melting-pot menus, but the focus now is pizza. It’s a relaxed place to eat – inside, in the covered courtyard, or in the riverside yard where people linger long after the plates are cleared.
Kirwan also runs Lú Fermentation, which has been brewing kombucha for a decade and is now upstairs at Pot Duggan’s. It behaves less like a soft drink and more like a pét-nat or farmhouse cider – dry, complex, lightly carbonated with 0.5-1% alcohol. Each batch develops its own character: Salted Verde, a grassy green tea with herbs; Bloom, fragrant with jasmine and rose; and Soura, a berry-fermented mix that shifts with the season. You’ll find them at Pot Duggan’s and on the shelves of the Cheese Press, nearby cafes and Design Bank in Miltown Malbay.
Aoife O’Malley’s Design Bank began as a pop-up and has since become a daily market – part gallery, part food hall – where artists, makers and an increasing number of Clare food producers set up side by side. It is as much about exchange of skills as it is about selling, with four local farms now among the regular traders.
One of these farmers is Fergal Smith, once a professional surfer from Mayo, who settled in Lahinch for its waves. Farming followed. With his wife, Sally, he runs Moy Hill Farm, four kilometres from town. What began as half an acre of scrub has grown into 67 acres, with another 40 rented, worked to biodynamic principles that fold livestock into the cycle. Vegetables are still the backbone, but there are now Dexter cattle, Jacob sheep and 400 hens, their produce reaching markets, restaurants and a CSA scheme where households sign up in advance for weekly boxes. Farm Walks open the gates to visitors, offering a glimpse of how the place works day to day.
Hugo Galloway, another surfer who swapped the science lab for dough, is originally from Cork and trained as an environmental scientist before deciding he preferred to work with his hands. He opened Hugo’s in a small Lahinch outlet (now a surf shop) before moving to larger premises, where queues form for his sourdough made with Wildfarmed flour, pastel de natas, Viennoiserie and Anam coffee roasted in Kilfenora.
Surfing and golf keep Lahinch busy year-round, and the town has cafes to match. Dodi Cafe, run by Peter and Doria Cush, turns out award-winning coffee and pastries, while their Stockroom across the street deals in low-intervention wines.
For lunch, Vaughan’s on the Prom is the prize spot – a glass-fronted diningroom looking straight on to the beach and its surfers. Lunch is walk-in only, so arrive early; dinner can be booked. Order the fish and chips, among the best in the country. Local potatoes are hand-cut, steamed, then fried in beef dripping, served with haddock, hake or cod in their special sourdough batter. Takeaway is available from Spooney’s, their casual outlet, and you can finish with their “cow to cone” ice cream. Later, head to Kenny’s pub. It’s everyone’s favourite.
Nearby in Liscannor, Vaughan’s Anchor Inn has held its ground for more than 40 years, serving lobster bisque, foie gras, steaks and freshly caught fish from a menu backed by a 200-bottle wine list. Dennis Vaughan passed it on to his son James after opening Vaughan’s on the Pier in 2021. For something simpler, Dolly’s – Elaine Slattery’s cafe in a restored 200-year-old cottage – serves Hugo’s pastries, Anam coffee and Lú kombucha. It shares the same Burren spirit as the markets and farm shops nearby – a place where food and community sit side by side, with a serene upstairs room open to yoga, poetry and whatever people want to bring through the door.
What runs through it all in Clare is connection – to land, to food, to one another. Whether you’re at a Michelin-starred table, a pub terrace with fish and chips, or a cafe sharing coffee and kombucha, the Burren insists on reminding you where you are – and why it matters.
Corinna Hardgrave was a guest of Vaughan’s and Linnane’s
