Flaggy Shore

The Flaggy Shore is a stretch of level limestone pavement running along the edge of Galway Bay at New Quay, where the rock meets the sea in flat grey slabs rather than cliffs. Inland of the road is Lough Murree, a brackish turlough-like lake, and the combination of shallow salt water, rock and bay makes it a good place for wading birds and for winter swans. Seamus Heaney's poem Postscript is set here - it describes driving along this shore in September with the wind and the light, and the impossibility of stopping properly to take it in, and the poem has quietly made the place a literary destination. There is no visitor centre or interpretation, which suits it. The rock is fossil-rich, the walking is level and easy, and the road is narrow with limited parking. It is exposed to the wind coming across the bay, which is much of the point.

What you actually see

• The limestone pavement - flat grey slabs running to the water's edge.
• Lough Murree - the brackish lake behind the road, with its birds.
• The bay view - across Galway Bay to the Connemara hills.
• The Heaney connection - the shore of the poem Postscript.

When to go

Any season; the poem is set in September, and autumn light on the bay is the reason many come then. Winter brings swans and waders. Wind is constant.

Honest expectations

Nothing is provided - no centre, no facilities, and parking is a few roadside spaces on a narrow road. The rock is slippery when wet. It is a quiet shoreline, not a spectacle.

Nearby

Ballyvaughan and the Burren are south; Kinvara is east around the bay.