The history of Clifden
D'Arcy's new town, Nimmo's quay, the Famine, the railway, Marconi, Alcock and Brown, the burning of 1921 and the Civil War. 15 moments, in order.
- 1804 to 1812
D'Arcy's idea
John D'Arcy inherited the estate in 1804, when it held little but fishermen and farmers, and in 1812 first spoke of building a town on the coast. He lived at Clifden Castle, built about 1818 west of the town and a ruin today.
- 1821 to 1831
Nimmo's quay and road
Poor roads and no capital held the plan back until the potato failed in 1821 and 1822 and D'Arcy asked Dublin for help. The engineer Alexander Nimmo came in 1822, built the quay, finished in 1831, and began the road to Galway; the town started to grow.
- 1839
A town of 185 houses
By the year D'Arcy died the town had 185 dwellings, most of three storeys, two churches, two hotels, three schools, a barracks, a courthouse, a gaol, a distillery and 23 pubs, 1,100 people, and the triangle of streets it still has. Marble, corn, fish and kelp went out through the harbour.
- 1843
O'Connell's monster meeting
Daniel O'Connell spoke at Clifden for repeal of the Union to a crowd put at 100,000.
- 1845 to 1850
The Famine
Growth ended with the Famine. By 1848 nine people in ten were on relief, landlords went bankrupt as rents dried up, and many emigrated to America. In November 1850 Hyacinth D'Arcy put the estates up for sale; the Eyres of Somerset bought most of them, and Hyacinth became a clergyman, rector of Omey and Clifden.
- 1848 to 1852
The missions
From 1848 the evangelical Irish Church Missions worked to convert Catholics, opening a mission church at Moyard Bridge in 1852 and orphanages at Glenowen and Ballyconree, with Hyacinth D'Arcy's support. Ballyconree was burned in 1922.
- 1853 and 1879
Two churches
Christ Church, the Church of Ireland church, was built in 1853 in place of one of 1810; St Joseph's, the Catholic church, was finished in 1879.
- 1895
The railway
On 1 July 1895 Clifden became the western end of the Midland Great Western line from Galway. The line closed in 1935; the Station House is now a hotel with shops and a museum.
- 1907
Marconi's wireless
Marconi built his first high-power transatlantic station four miles south of the town, to be as close as possible to its twin at Glace Bay in Nova Scotia. The first fixed wireless service between Europe and North America opened on 17 October 1907 with 10,000 words. Up to 200 people worked there, among them Jack Phillips, later the chief radio operator who died on the Titanic.
- 1919
Alcock and Brown
On 15 June 1919 the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic ended in Derrygimlagh bog beside the Marconi station. Alcock took the green bog for a meadow; the Vickers Vimy's wheels sank and were wrecked, the two men were carried into town by coach with minor injuries, and by the time they came back on the Marconi railway locals had taken pieces of the aircraft as souvenirs.
- 1921
The burning of Clifden
Thomas Whelan of Clifden was hanged in Dublin on 14 March 1921 for a Bloody Sunday killing he denied. Two days later the IRA shot two constables at Eddie King's Corner, and in the small hours of St Patrick's Day a trainload of Black and Tans arrived, killed one civilian, wounded another and burned fourteen houses. Whelan is remembered every year, and a monument to him stands in the town.
- 1922
The Civil War
Anti-Treaty forces held Connemara, burned the workhouse and, on 25 July, the Marconi station, calling it a British concern; the service moved to Wales and about a thousand local livelihoods went with it. The National Army marched in on 15 August, was driven out on 29 October by 350 Republicans with an armoured car called The Queen of the West, and returned for good on 16 December, when the first train in seven months soon followed.
- 1924 and 1947
The pony show
The Connemara Pony Show, run by the Connemara Pony Breeders' Society on the third Thursday of August since 1924, has been held in Clifden since 1947.
- 1979
Arts Week
Teachers at the community school started Community Arts Week in 1979 to bring the arts into the classroom; it fills late September with readings, lectures, recitals and music.
- 1989 to 2008
The airport that never opened
A 1989 plan for a runway at Ardagh was refused for the sake of the bog, went to the Supreme Court and fell; a 600-metre strip was built at Cloon near Cleggan in 2008 for flights to Inishbofin and by 2012 had still not opened.
Where this comes from
Every paragraph above summarises a statement in Wikipedia, "Clifden", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, as it read on 2026-09-19. Follow it for the footnotes. Nothing has been added from memory.