Journey 03 · Ireland
Wind Versus Wings
The Wild Atlantic Way, when it allowed
Published 15 May 2026 · Travelled 6–19 Apr 2026
- 8 moments
- 14 days
- 504 km
- Spring
- Ireland
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/250
- 52.1409° N, 10.2680° W
- Dingle town
- 16:20
- 9°C, horizontal drizzle
Grounded on arrival, 20 m/s off the Atlantic, so I did what the town clearly intends: walked the lanes photographing pub fronts. The pink one with the Guinness sign wins. In Jaisalmer we colour buildings to out-shout the desert; here they out-shout the grey. Same instinct, wetter execution.
- 24mm · f/5.6 · 1/400 · ISO 100
- 52.9720° N, 9.4300° W
- Cliffs of Moher
- 14:10
- 11°C, 9 m/s, brief sun
The famous cliffs allow drones only from outside the reserve, so I launched from a farmer's field east of the boundary with his blessing and his dog's supervision. Six minutes of flyable air all afternoon. The headland ran out into the blue like the end of a sentence.
the dog took its supervision seriously
Overheard · Doolin · 21:30
"Is it yourself flies the little helicopter above the cliffs?" — "When the wind lets me." — "The wind here doesn't let anyone do anything. It only forgets to stop you." He then played for two hours without forgetting anything.
- 24mm · f/5.6 · 1/320 · ISO 100
- 52.6690° N, 9.6660° W
- Kilkee cliffs
- 10:45
- 8°C, steady 9 m/s
The Kilkee cliffs get a fraction of Moher's visitors and, from altitude, twice the drama: black teeth of rock combing the swell into white. Nine metres per second, steady, no gusts, the kind of wind you can do business with. I flew three batteries back to back and my hands only shook from the cold.
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/640
- 52.1900° N, 10.2000° W
- Conor Pass, Dingle peninsula
- 09:15
- 7°C, cloud on the tops
Over the Conor Pass in second gear, stone walls close enough to read, a lake in the glacial hollow below like spilled mercury. Pulled in at the layby to let a bus squeeze past and stayed forty minutes. Ireland's roads are what happens when sheep are your civil engineers, and I mean that with respect.
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/1000
- 52.0960° N, 10.4580° W
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/1000
- 52.0960° N, 10.4580° W
- Slea Head, Dingle peninsula
- 12:30
- 10°C, gusts to 16 m/s
Grounded again — gusts to 16 — so I worked the headland on foot, which the Wild Atlantic Way rewards more than pride admits. Green fields run to the cliff and stop as if scissors were involved, and the path walks the very seam. The islands offshore sat in the haze like ships waiting for orders.
07 · Grounded-day economy, Galway
- Cove near Achill, Co. Mayo
- 19:50
- 9°C, 5 m/s, clearing
- Last frame
Last flyable evening, a cove on the Mayo coast with sand the colour of bone and water doing greens the Atlantic supposedly doesn't own. One slow pass at 80 metres, line of sight from the machair, landed with 15 percent and the light going pink behind the headland. Some frames you fly home inside your chest.
- 24mm · f/4 · 1/240 · ISO 100
- 53.9670° N, 10.0100° W
The route
8 stops
Journey completed
Fourteen days, eight stories
- Frames exposed
- 1900
- Days flyable
- 6 of 14
- Rainbows, confirmed
- 9
- Pints of stout, medicinal
- several
- Favourite moment
- The cliffs at Kilkee with nobody else on the headland, wind at exactly 9 m/s and holding
- Best food
- Chowder and soda bread in Dingle, eaten while the drone charged off the pub's socket with permission
