How a driving route became a running circuit
A Route That Became a Race Circuit
The Wild Atlantic Way was designed as a signposted driving route along Ireland's west coast, stretching nearly 2,500 kilometres through nine counties and three provinces, from Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula to Kinsale in Cork — marketed, with some justification, as the longest defined coastal touring route in the world. Runners got there first in spirit if not in signage — coastal road races along this stretch predate the branded route by decades — but the Wild Atlantic Way has since given that scattered tradition a shared identity, and race organisers along the coast have leaned into it deliberately, selling scenery as hard as they sell a personal best. It has also made travelling specifically to run in Ireland a recognisable holiday category in its own right, particularly among overseas visitors chasing a scenic marathon rather than a fast one.
The Counties, Each With Its Signature Event
Nearly every county along the route now has a race built explicitly around its stretch of coastline: the Clare Burren Marathon Challenge through the limestone of the Burren, the Dingle Half and Marathon along one of the most photographed peninsulas in Europe, the Donegal Wild Atlantic Marathon between Glencolmcille and Killybegs, events around Louisburgh and Clew Bay in Mayo, and the Connemarathon through Galway's Twelve Bens — which began in 2001 with just 70 runners and now draws around 3,200 across its marathon, ultra, half and 10k distances, one of the fastest-growing races the west coast has produced. Each one trades a fast, flat PB course for something a city marathon can't offer — a headland, a mountain range, an estuary, a stretch of cliff that most runners will only ever see from a car window otherwise.
Reading This Book Alongside the County Guides
Where a race in this book falls in Clare, Kerry, Galway, Donegal, Mayo or Sligo, we say so, because the Wild Beauty series already covers that coastline in far more depth than a race entry allows — the walks, the beaches, the small harbours worth a detour, the two days either side of the race itself. If you're travelling for one of these events, the matching county guide (Wild Beauty: Clare, Wild Beauty: Kerry, and so on) is the better companion for everything that happens off the course, and the two books were written to be packed in the same bag.
From Running Ireland by F Cosgrove — a guide to the races of the island. Every race in the book is on our race map, county by county, with the month it usually falls in.