Clifden

The capital of Connemara, founded about 1812 by John D'Arcy. Marconi built a transatlantic wireless station on the bog nearby in 1907, and in June 1919 Alcock and Brown crash-landed in that same bog to complete the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.

Clifden was founded early in the 19th century by John D'Arcy of Clifden Castle, who first proposed a town here in 1812. After the potato failure of 1821–22 the engineer Alexander Nimmo was sent to build a quay, finished in 1831, and a road to Galway, and the town grew fast: by D'Arcy's death in 1839 it had 185 houses, two churches, two hotels, a distillery and 23 pubs, and about 1,100 people. Daniel O'Connell held a monster meeting here in 1843, said to have drawn 100,000.

The Famine ended the boom: by 1848, 90% of the people were on relief, and in 1850 Hyacinth D'Arcy sold the estate. In 1907 Marconi's transatlantic wireless station south of the town opened the first public wireless service between Europe and North America, employing up to 200 people, among them Jack Phillips, later the Titanic's chief radio operator. On 15 June 1919 Alcock and Brown ended the first non-stop transatlantic flight nose-down in Derrygimlagh bog nearby.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Clifden ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Clifden Castle · castle · 2 km
• Ballynahinch Castle · castle · 11 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Doolough Valley · In March 1849 starving people walked 12 miles here to be inspected for relief, were refused, and died on the road home. A simple stone cross marks the walk.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.