An Clár · Munster
Clare holds the oldest known evidence of people in Ireland: a bear's kneecap from the Alice and Gwendoline Cave near Clarecastle, cut by a butcher around 10,500 BC. It was dug up in 1902 but not studied for more than a century; identified in 2011 and published in 2016, it pushed Ireland's human story back 2,500 years. The Neolithic people who followed left the county among the richest in the country for dolmens, Poulnabrone in the Burren the best known, with burials dated to about 3800 BC. Ptolemy's map of about AD 100 puts a tribe called the Gangani here.
| Province | Munster |
|---|---|
| County town | Ennis |
| Population | 127,938 (2022) |
| Area (km²) | 3,450 |
| Population change in the Famine, 1841–51 | -26% |
| Daily Irish speakers | 1,415 (2022) |
| Highest point (m) | 532 — Moylussa |
| All-Ireland hurling titles | 5 |
| Townlands | 2,265 |
| Baronies | 11 |
| Civil parishes | 81 |
| Recorded monuments | 9,019 |
| Ringforts | 2,401 |
| Holy wells | 241 |
| Historic buildings recorded | 450 |
| Castles on the site | 13 |
| Battles and sieges | 3 |
| Workhouses | 8 |
| Railway stations (with an article) | 4 |
| Blue Flag beaches | 8 |
| Towns on the site | 4 |
| Surnames on the site | 60 |
Every figure is from a page on myireland.ie that names its source — see https://myireland.ie/counties/clare/. Printed from myireland.ie, the atlas of Irish history.