DUSAC

Overview

Kilkee lies right on the west coast of Clare with nothing much between it and America. With the full force of the Atlantic rolling in, it can be very weather-dependent. However if you do get out the water is usually extremely clear and the underwater topography makes for many great dives. There is diving for ocean divers, and plenty for sports divers. The diving is close (five or ten minutes by boat), non-tidal, and very good; the perfect ingredients for a relaxed trip! The club has yet to visit many of the sites in this spot.

Previous Organisers

Trevor Woods organised a trip to Kilkee, in 2009 for the June bank holiday. We used the boats from Oceanlife dive centre, who were very accommodating and took us to a number of different sites.

Boats

There is a slip just outside the dive centre. The slip is tidal, the locals recommend to launch/ retrieve 3 hours outside of low tide during spring tides.

There are no public moorings. There are some private moorings in the bay but we asked at the dive centre and they could not give us any contact names to see about renting one. (2023) We were able to moor our boats thanks to the local dive centre.

There is a small pier you can tie up to, but it isn’t really a spot for leaving the boat for more than ten minutes. We just anchored the boats over lunch but be careful not to beach the boats on a low tide; it gets quite shallow in places.

If mooring isn’t possible, at night, the boats will need to come out. There is a big public car park beside the slip, and we didn’t seem to be the only people leaving RIBs. No need to strap them down, its only twenty metres to the car park from the slip, and you will be re-launching them the next day anyway.

FYI: There is a marina in Kilrush, but it is MILES too far away. You cut across land in the car, in the boats you would need to go all the way around Loop Head.

Sites

Chart

The scale of the only available chart was useless, so the club does not have a copy.

The dive sites do not seem to be tidal. The boats from the dive centre run in and out constantly all day.

We have not dived in Kilkee all that much and we haven’t a great deal of dive descriptions logged. Your best bet for descriptions of the local dive sites would be the Dive Ireland guide or else Galway Sub-Aqua Club. The club dived Middle Rock, Georges Head and Bishop’s Rock in June 2005. Middle Rock was excellent, Bishop’s Rock superb and Georges Head is a bit hit and miss. When we dived Bishop’s Rock we dropped in about twenty to thirty yards out from the right of the rock into about twenty five metres of water. Following a wall out to sea we came across walls, cliffs gullies and ravines. Middle Rock is supposed to be the best dive in the area and there’s certainly a few dives to be had here. Again, walls, nice rock formations and boulders at the bottom.

In June 2023, we dived George’s Head, Middle Rock, Oilean na Beatha, Biraghy Mor (the bigger of the two small islands) and the Pollack Holes. The visibility was alright, it could have been better. We had perfect weather, generally wouldn’t have gotten to all of these sights. The majority of people liked the first dive on George’s Head the most. It had lots of life. It consists of 3 fingers of rock coming out underwater and you can just follow them around. There’s a great shelf around 12m with plenty of life on it. It was possible to drop divers in quite shallow at around 6-9m, so it’s good for ODs. Notably the life stopped around 20m with very little at 26m.

The following are some descriptions from the trip in June 2009 – superb diving was the overall verdict, although we were blessed with perfect weather!

Newfie: (2009) Used as a checkout dive by the dive centre. A shallow reef, max depth 10m, still inside the main bay. More a pile of rocks than a reef really, flat sandy bottom extends away from the rocks. If you miss and end up on top of the reef, prepare to be swimming around in 3m of kelp. Not a patch on the other sites so I wouldn’t bother with this one.

Middle Rock
(2009) Very short trip out from the slip, just at the mouth of the bay. Beautiful dive, a steep wall with lots of cracks and overhangs going down to 35m. Tons of fish – wrasse, pollack, dogfish, also covered in dahlia anemones.

(June 2023) We spotted some Pink Sea Fans here which are a rare sight in Ireland. If you approach Middle Rock from the north, there’s a handy hole in the rock opposite if you’re looking towards George’s Head. Once you see the light from the hole you know you can turn left towards middle rock to drop the divers which is handy to know if the rocks are submerged, (before you get there you don’t see it).

Diamond Rocks
(2009) Spectacular underwater canyon with sheer walls, lots of nooks and crannies full of life. Lobsters everywhere, spider crabs, more fish. Got down to about 30m. The area where we came up was affected by the waves surging over the rocks so this is something to be careful of when ascending.

Oilean na Beatha
(2009) Out of the harbour and go north along the coast- approx 10-15 mins. There’s a part of the cliff which juts out into the sea, with a cave underneath. Just beside this is a rock wall which breaks the surface running North – South. We dropped in at the mouth of the cave and followed the wall south. The wall goes down to approx 20m and is full of cracks and life, – beautiful anemones of all colours of the rainbow. There is a boulder field at the bottom of the wall, so you can go a bit deeper here and poke around. We got to max 26m.

Donegal Point
(2009) A cavern dive. It’s north of the harbour again, about 5-10 mins further on than Oilean na Beatha. There’s a small headland that juts out, the entrance is on the North side. Dropped in and down to 14m – where you find he entrance to the cave. There was a small gully at the entrance full of massive spider crabs. Keeping the wall of the cave on our right, we swam through – it gets quite dark at about 18m, continues down and opens out again at about 24m, on the other side of the headland. You can finish the dive looking around this wall and surface more or less where you dropped in. The cavern only took a few mins to swim through, and is very wide, plenty of room to swim side by side. Visibility was great – the bottom is sandy rather than silty. We saw an enormous lobster in the cave, and several others around the place as well.

Biraghy Mor
(2009) This site is an outcrop of rock, which breaks the surface just to the west of Oilean na Beatha. It runs N-S. We dropped in at the North end, landward side. It’s a sheer wall with plenty of cracks and tons of life at all depths. There are also boulders at the bottom of the wall. We stayed at 20-25m because it was so interesting, but you could get a good bit deeper. The amount of fish on this dive was incredible  – considerable time was spent just hanging in the water watching them all! Big shoals of pollack, wrasse everywhere – following us, asleep on rocks, chasing each other. Tompot blennies too. A quote from back on the boat – “I think I saw a million fish”.

Safety

You need the usual boat safety equipment: O2, 1st Aid Kit, flares, VHF, GPS. Also make note of the following:

Shannon Coastguard

VHF Channels 28, 16, 67, DSC 70

Marine rescue centre

Kilkee

Emergency services

112 (or 999) on land

Closest hospital

Ennis

Recompression chamber

Galway, 091 524222

Dublin (private)

Weather

Weather Dial 1550 123 855

RTE Radio1 (88-89fm) at 0602, 1253, 1655, 2355

VHF 0103, 0403, 0703, 1003, 1303, 1603, 1903, 2203

Warnings on VHF (channel 16) 0033, 0633, 1233, 1833

Local Facilities

(2023) Local by laws forbid compressing at the pier. Everyone brought two cylinders each to compress in the evenings. Alternatively; check with the dive centre by the slip in advance if they are able to fill the bottles.

The slip is located off the public car park. There’s limited access because of high restrictions for the car park, 2.1m. Topknot without an A frame was able to go through without an issue. For Rósan we removed the radio antennae and were able to get out without unlocking the height barrier. The local dive club helped with the car park barrier so it’s best to contact them. It’s possible to park the boat trailers on the slip for the day. The local dive club very kindly organised a mooring for us so we didn’t have to launch and retrieve every day.

Amenities

Kilkee is a big tourist hotspot, a favourite getaway for people from Limerick, and therefore there are loads of shops on the main street e.g MACE etc, but they are typically small places, so if you want odd foods bring them. There are plenty of restaurants too, if you don’t fancy cooking. We went to Scott’s for food though it took rather too long for the hungry diver and some of us abandoned it for the chipper across the road.

There is a Bank of Ireland on the main street (left hand side as you drive towards the sea) with an ATM at the side of it. There is a petrol station as you come into town.

Entertainment

There is a great, old-man style, pub mid-way down Kilkee main street, that does good pints of Guinness. Scotts is a popular hotspot, bang in the middle of the main street again, and there are a couple of clubs as well down the far end of town (other side to dive centre).

If you are blown-out, (it has been known to happen), there are lovely walks along the cliffs in both directions. The Pollack Holes are good fun to swim though you need calm water and low tide.

Info

You can get more information about the area from the following sources:

• Underwater Ireland book
• Dive Ireland guide
• Galway Sub-Aqua Club guide

Getting there

There are 2 main routes, either follow the AA route finder one – down the Galway road to Loughrea, then to Gort, Enis, Kilrush, kilkee (this is the shortest but probably has more traffic problems on a bank holiday). Or else take the N7 into limerick, itself, then head for Ennis. As above. The second route is longer but towers might prefer better roads and less bends.