These majestic cliffs rise from the Atlantic Ocean to a height of nearly 200m. They take their name from a ruined promontory fort, Mothar, which was demolished during the Napoleonic wars to make room for a signal tower.
The rock consists of layers of shale and sandstone. And every now and then a piece of the cliff falls off and disappears in the ocean down below.
O’Brien’s Tower and the Cliffs of Moher are located a short distance from the village Doolin famous for its traditional music and from Liscannor famous for its slate flagstones which were used at the time for fencing purposes. In fact the story goes that Cornelius O’Brien, one time member of the parliament for County Clare won a bet with his English counterparts that he could build a fence a mile long, a yard high and an inch thick. These were the dimensions of the flagstones and they were quickly adapted as building material as well as floor covering in farmhouses throughout the 19th century. The flagstones bear the remarkable feature of the imprint of fossilized eels compacted over thousands of years.