Clifden Town is a relatively new addition to the Connemara landscape, this 19 th century town was designed by John D’arcy as a commercial centre in order to raise the living standards in the area. The name for the town in Irish is “An Clochan” and although unofficially regarded as the Capital of Connemara, Clifden was one of the last towns to be built in Ireland .

Clifden Events:In July 1905 Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian pioneer of the wireless telegraph, chose a site 3 miles south-west of Clifden at the bog of Derrygimlagh to erect the first Transatlantic Marconi Wireless telegraph station in Europe. Turf was used to fuel the steam-driven power plant. On 17 th October 1907 , the station opened and Marconi exchanged the first transatlantic radio messages with his station in Nova Scotia .

On 15 th June 1919 two young men, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, flew their Vickers-Jiny 2 seater bi-plane from St. John’s , Newfoundland , Canada , non-stop across the Atlantic and crash-landed in the flat bog at Derrygimlagh, near Clifden, believing it to be a field. This was the 1 st plane to fly across the Atlantic . The nose went down and the men scrambled to safety, close to the Marconi station. They made their way to Clifden and sent a telegram from the post office informing the world of their historic aviation achievement .