Are the Cliffs of Moher Worth Seeing?

By:  Rachel Orenstein

Friday, December 1st, 2023

  The Cliffs of Moher are one of Ireland’s most iconic landscapes. 

This is in itself a feat since the island knows beauty at every turn, majesty through every alleyway. Awe is struck with every crashing wave on every weathered rock. Grassy hills roll like sheep in the heather, green then bright then green again. Each sandy strip of coastline eagerly awaits the next sunrise over this Emerald Isle, waiting with measured breath just to bask in its glory once more. No matter where in Ireland you stand, there is beauty within sight.

And now, you bask in this beauty for yourself. A mere mortal stood on the edge of this ancient, godlike cliff.

~

One of the first suggested results when you search the name of this cliffside destination is, “are the Cliffs of Moher worth seeing?”

Worth seeing?

Worth seeing?

Well, certainly the search results speak for themselves. Miles of images of this landscape appear for those scrolling evaluators: photographs of every angle, every season, probably every blade of grass. There is no shortage of pictures of the Cliffs of Moher. It is thoroughly seen right then through the screen. Beautiful and serene and absolutely worth seeing. But for those who determine otherwise - for those who decide the cliffs have been filmed and photographed, tread on by millions, seen now through a screen - you can offer them only pity. For it is a pitiful decision that visiting the Cliffs of Moher would be wasteful of time.

To come so close to this wonder and choose to miss it? A crying shame. 

~

A sharp wind lifts your hair from your neck. Sea spray somehow finds your skin all the way up here. The cliff face is so tall, the drop so impossibly steep, yet there is an elevation to this place. You feel it in your soul, this lifted sensation. Everything rises: the rocks, the sea, the sense of being. 

Well, everything rises but the sun, which sets now on the glowing horizon. Soft yellow shrouded in mist, it casts a shadow on the cliffs. Lines of lingering sunlight are cut by by jutting dark rocks in an effect mirroring the lines of light and dark stone within the cliff face. Mist blankets the scene. Its hazy effect reminds you of a children’s fairytale, like you have somehow walked through the pages of a storybook to arrive at some illustrated fantasy. Like a castle should loom at the edge of the cliffs, with a princess and a king and a fairy godmother and far too many talking mice.

Finally comfortable standing on this exalted ground, you battle fear to look down over the edge of the trail wall. Far, far down - dizzily far down - white waves crash on dark rocks. There is an island of towering stone before the inner alcove of the cliffside. You swear you could see a mermaid lounging on the cool rock, tail as green as the dewy grass and hair as yellow as the flowering weeds scattered around you. She waves, and her hair blows with wild abandon like the sparkling sea around her.

Another wave, certainly larger than it appears from up here, crashes in slow motion and sends white sea foam halfway up the cliff face. When it subsides with the tide, the mermaid is gone.

There is a watch tower far to the right, perfectly placed for a framed view. This is confirmed once you enter and find distressed blue windows beautifully framing the sea and concrete battlements framing the Cliffs of Moher in a Medieval aesthetic. Whoever built this tower must have agreed with your fairytale assessment. In this place it is so easy to imagine yourself a Dark-Age royal gazing longingly at the sea. Wondering if your love will return, if you will ever see their familiar ship on the horizon bearing the banner of their family, of their victory. 

Sheep - oh, to be a sheep here - graze in the field behind you. A snail - oh, to even be a snail - inches along a blade of grass with an entire view itself. As you so often do in Ireland, you find yourself jealous of the birds that glide over the cliffs on strong winds. That medieval royal waiting in the tower would have been jealous, too.

No picture, no words can contain this beautiful scene. Its majesty is priceless and indescribable and you have never felt so simultaneously insignificant and infinite. 

This is beauty. This is Earth. This is all of human history and yet every wave widdles it away piece by piece. You are the universe experiencing itself, you are the reader of your own fairytale, and so you feel the mist in your lungs and the sea in your blood. You close your eyes and feel hundreds of feet of stone beneath your shoes, shivering in the wind. You are only a traveller to this place, yet it envelopes you in an ancient familiarity. It is so incredibly beautiful that it almost feels like home.

“Are the Cliffs of Moher worths seeing?” Absolutely.

Are the Cliffs of Moher worth experiencing?

  You simply must go see for yourself.