Clifden has emptied out. The Arts Festival finished at the end of September, and since then the visitors who pack Connemara’s capital all summer have mostly gone. A report in The Irish Times last weekend, part of a series on what happens in tourist towns once the season ends, describes a town getting ready for months of thin trade. The Clifden Tourist Information Centre has a sign up saying it will not reopen until June 2027. Several seafood restaurants have closed until spring.
Some of the town’s best-known businesses told the paper they are staying open anyway. They gave three reasons: loyalty to staff, the local customers who carry them through the winter, and the hope that the quiet months will pick up.
The hard numbers behind a Clifden winter
The figures explain why a town like Clifden has such a sharp season. Fáilte Ireland’s Business of Tourism report, published in July, found that overseas visitors spent €5.7 billion in Ireland in 2025. More than two-fifths of those visitors arrived between June and September. Domestic tourism was worth about €3.6 billion and was spread more evenly through the year, with 69 per cent of short domestic breaks taken outside the summer peak.
That split matters in Clifden. Brian Hughes of the family-run Abbeyglen Castle Hotel told the paper that American guests drive the high season, though most stay only one night. Once they leave, the hotel goes after Irish guests from Galway and Dublin with special offers. He was frank that the off-season makes no profit. The hotel still stays open for most of the year with roughly 75 staff, and closes for part of January while about 40 tradespeople carry out renovation work booked months earlier. He also said American visitors arrived later than usual this year, and European “coolcation” travellers filled the gap in July and August.
Declan Mannion’s family has run Mannion’s Seafood Bar and Restaurant since 1930. He described the dilemma behind the line that gave the report its headline: in purely economic terms, closing for the winter would probably make sense. He opens on quiet November Mondays anyway, because he values his staff, and closes in January so that international workers can go home. Food makes up about 80 per cent of his turnover and drink’s share is falling. North American visitors account for around a quarter of his customers. He also warned that many local businesses are ageing and the next generation may not want to work in hospitality.
Christmas in October and a bank holiday bonus
Retailers are adapting in their own ways. Lisa King, who has worked at the family’s King’s Paper and Gift Shop since she was 14, said the town quietens quickly after arts week. Visitors help, she said, but local shoppers are what keep the business going, and the shop opened its Christmas section in October to bring them in.
At Love Vintage, Carol Anne Joyce and Emma O’Sullivan said the shop closes in early January. The St Brigid’s bank holiday in early February has shortened their dead season, which used to run until Valentine’s Day. Joyce is a Clifden native. She started the business 17 years ago as a pop-up at the Connemara Pony Show, with €35,000 she won on RTÉ’s Winning Streak. Her team says Americans are the big spenders, but Irish customers are the ones who keep coming back.
Fine Gael county councillor Eileen Mannion, also from Clifden, called the town vibrant, resilient and welcoming, and said work is under way to draw visitors outside the summer months.
What it means for the town
Winter events are part of that effort. Christmas in Clifden, the festival started by broadcaster Ryan Tubridy, runs over three weekends and is meant to bring Irish visitors west in the darkest part of the year.
There are longer-term plans too. Galway County Council has shelved a controversial redesign of Market Square, which would have cut town-centre parking. It is now seeking national funding for an upgrade of Beach Road Quay and Harbour Park, with an amphitheatre, climbing wall, picnic area and sports facilities. The hope is that work can start in 2028.
What happens next
For now, the test is the next few months. Most of the businesses that spoke to the paper close for at least part of January and reopen as the spring bank holidays and the first tour coaches arrive. The tourist office reopens next June. Whether Christmas in Clifden, the St Brigid’s weekend and a stronger push for Irish off-season visitors can close the gap left by the Americans will decide how many of the town’s family businesses get through to another summer.
Sources
- The Irish Times: ‘Economically it probably would make sense to close’: Clifden businesses prepare for barren winter (24 October 2026)
Featured image: The town of Clifden by Raúl Corral, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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