SeaLogIreland · wall · advanced
The Lime Rock wall off Quilty: a rock face running to 30 m with storm-cut boulder chimneys punched up through it, some of them 10 m deep.
This site is the back, or seaward, side of Lime Rock, one of the reefs worked by boat off Quilty in west Clare. Quilty is not a household name in Irish diving the way Kilkee is, but it is dived hard by the local and visiting CFT clubs: Burren Sub Aqua Club, based in Clare, list Quilty as one of their four regular launch points alongside Doolin, White Strand and Ballyreen, and the reefs off it sit between Seafield Point and Mutton Island on a coast of steep drop-offs and walls.
The only detailed published account we could find of Lime Rock itself is a Curragh Sub Aqua Club trip report from the June bank holiday of 2018, written by one of the divers on the boat. It describes Lime Rock as a wall that runs down to 30 m with life the whole way along it, and, more usefully, records a feature you would not guess from a chart: a series of chimneys dotted along the wall, some of them up to 10 m deep, cut by boulders being rolled around inside the rock during Atlantic storms. The party surfaced through one of them at the end of the dive and found a fish nursery inside. The same club rated it alongside Grundel Rock and Seal Rock as the best of a weekend of Quilty diving. Nobody in the sources we read distinguishes the back of the rock from the rest of it, so treat this page as a description of the Lime Rock wall generally.
The boats work out of Seafield harbour and Quilty pier, a few minutes away. Burren Sub Aqua Club put the water on this coast at 9 to 16 degrees, which is drysuit diving year round, and name lobster, crayfish, prawns, conger, cuckoo wrasse, pipefish and pollack as the usual company. Marine records within a few kilometres of the pin add ballan wrasse, lesser-spotted dogfish, brown crab, spiny starfish, edible urchins, common brittlestars, cotton-spinner sea cucumbers, the sea lemon and the sea hare, dog whelks and top shells on the shallow rock, plus common and bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoise, which the Curragh party saw on the boat every day of the weekend. Flapper skate, an endangered species, are also recorded on this stretch of coast.
Boat, out of Seafield harbour or the pier at Quilty in west Clare. The Curragh Sub Aqua Club party towed their own RIBs and arranged moorings locally for a weekend covering Lime Rock, Seal Rock, the back of Mutton Island, Grundel Rock and Blue Pool. Burren Sub Aqua Club, the local CFT club, dive out of Quilty regularly.
Access to the site runs through a local operator.
The published account of this reef is a June bank-holiday club weekend, and the Clare clubs dive the coast through the summer. The season is set by Atlantic weather, since the water temperature range of 9 to 16 degrees makes little difference under a drysuit.
A short boat run from Seafield harbour or Quilty pier out to the reefs between Seafield Point and Mutton Island, dived when the Atlantic allows. Water on this coast runs 9 to 16 degrees. None of the sources read here publishes a visibility figure for the site.
On current: No source read here gives a tidal window for Lime Rock. The Curragh Sub Aqua Club account describes a settled weekend of Force 1 to 3 winds in which the whole Quilty programme, including sites they call divable only in perfect conditions, went ahead; that is a description of one good weekend and not a statement that the site is always benign. This is an exposed Atlantic reef and the chimneys in the wall exist because storms roll boulders around inside it.
Best months: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
The Curragh Sub Aqua Club account of diving it describes a wall that goes to 30 m, with an abundance of life the whole way along. That is the only depth figure we could trace to divers who were in the water there, so it is the one recorded here.
Vertical shafts running up through the rock face, some of them up to 10 m deep, cut over time by boulders being rolled around inside the rock during Atlantic storms. The Curragh party surfaced through one of them at the end of a dive, using it for their safety stop, and found a fish nursery inside.
By boat from Quilty in west Clare. The Curragh Sub Aqua Club weekend worked out of Seafield harbour, the sheltered slipway inside Lurga Point about 3 km from Quilty village, which also serves the reefs running out towards Mutton Island. Burren Sub Aqua Club, the local CFT club, list Quilty as one of their regular launch points.
No. It is a wall running to 30 m on an exposed Atlantic reef several kilometres offshore, dived from a boat, and the chimneys through the rock are short overheads. It suits a diver already comfortable at 30 m in a drysuit, on a settled day.
The Curragh account reports life along the whole wall without naming species there. The Clare club that dives this coast names lobster, crayfish, prawns, conger, cuckoo wrasse, pipefish and pollack as the usual company, and marine records near the pin add ballan wrasse, lesser-spotted dogfish, brown crab, spiny starfish, edible urchins, brittlestars, cotton-spinner sea cucumbers and sea lemons. Common and bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoise are recorded here, and the visiting club saw dolphins on the boat every day.
Late spring to early autumn, when the Atlantic settles enough to reach the offshore reefs. The published account of Lime Rock is a June bank-holiday weekend in which the wind never got past Force 3, which is what it takes to dive the exposed sites in this group. Water temperature stays between 9 and 16 degrees all year, so the season is a weather question rather than a warmth one.
No. It is an offshore reef reached only by boat on an exposed stretch of Atlantic coast, and the dive described is a wall running down to 30 m. Snorkelling in this area is done from the sheltered beaches inshore, not out on the reefs.
| Species | How often | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Nucella lapillus | occasional | 15 |
| Calliostoma zizyphinum | occasional | 13 |
| Dipturus intermedius | occasional | 11 |
| Steromphala cineraria | occasional | 11 |
| Physalia physalis | occasional | 10 |
| Carcinus maenas | occasional | 10 |
| Steromphala umbilicalis | occasional | 10 |
| Littorina littorea | occasional | 10 |
| Pagurus bernhardus | occasional | 9 |
| Asterina gibbosa | occasional | 9 |
| Patella vulgata | occasional | 9 |
| Mytilus edulis | occasional | 9 |
| Marthasterias glacialis | occasional | 9 |
| Delphinus delphis | occasional | 8 |
| Scyliorhinus canicula | occasional | 7 |
| Dynamena pumila | occasional | 7 |
| Ophiothrix fragilis | occasional | 7 |
| Botryllus schlosseri | occasional | 7 |
| Aurelia aurita | occasional | 7 |
| Littorina saxatilis | occasional | 7 |
| Hymeniacidon perlevis | occasional | 7 |
| Patella pellucida | occasional | 6 |
| Phorcus lineatus | occasional | 6 |
| Amphipholis squamata | occasional | 6 |
| Donax vittatus | occasional | 6 |
| Littorina obtusata | occasional | 6 |
| Aplysia punctata | occasional | 5 |
| Anomia ephippium | occasional | 5 |
| Tursiops truncatus | occasional | 5 |
| Labrus bergylta | occasional | 5 |
| Echinus esculentus | occasional | 5 |
| Asterias rubens | occasional | 5 |
| Cancer pagurus | occasional | 5 |
| Holothuria forskali | occasional | 5 |
| Trivia monacha | occasional | 5 |
| Patella ulyssiponensis | occasional | 5 |
| Archidoris pseudoargus | occasional | 5 |
| Clavelina lepadiformis | rare | 4 |
| Aplidium pallidum | rare | 4 |
| Porcellana platycheles | rare | 4 |
| Lipophrys pholis | rare | 4 |
| Halisarca dujardinii | rare | 4 |
| Chrysaora hysoscella | rare | 4 |
| Phocoena phocoena | rare | 4 |
| Tritia incrassata | rare | 4 |
| Didemnum maculosum | rare | 3 |
| Xantho hydrophilus | rare | 3 |
| Idotea emarginata | rare | 3 |
| Idotea granulosa | rare | 3 |
| Paracentrotus lividus | rare | 3 |
| Hymedesmia (Stylopus) coriacea | rare | 3 |
| Cliona celata | rare | 3 |
| Phoca vitulina | rare | 3 |
| Hiatella arctica | rare | 3 |
| Littorina fabalis | rare | 3 |
| Rissoa parva | rare | 3 |
| Trivia arctica | rare | 3 |
| Lepidochitona cinerea | rare | 3 |
| Halichondria (Halichondria) panicea | rare | 3 |
| Tricolia pullus | rare | 3 |
A through-cavern under a small headland north of Kilkee: in at 14 m, dark at 18 m, out at 24 m on the far side.
An offshore rock north of Kilkee whose wall runs from a boulder field at about 30 m all the way up to the surface.
A reef that dries out at low water, with a sunlit south face, a torch-only swim-through on the north side, and a long record of swell trouble.
A gently sloping kelp-and-boulder bay on the far side of George's Head, and the Kilkee site that stays divable when the others do not.
The Kilkee wall you dive as one long ascent: cracks and overhangs from 35-40 m with something to look at all the way up to 6 m.
The seaward rock of the Kilkee pair, listed by the local club as its own boat dive and summed up in four words: only for the curious.
SeaLog imports your dives from your dive computer or Apple Watch, tracks every animal you see, and keeps your logbook safe forever.
Download SeaLog
