Classroom lesson 路 The Cliffs of Moher馃嚠馃嚜 Ireland

The Cliffs of Moher

Sea cliffs taller than 60 double-decker buses, on Ireland's wild Atlantic edge

The Cliffs of Moher rising from the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Cliffs of Moher are huge cliffs on the west coast of Ireland, where the land suddenly stops and drops straight down into the Atlantic Ocean. At their highest point they are 214 metres tall - about the height of 60 double-decker buses stacked on top of each other.

Tell me more

The cliffs stretch for 14 kilometres along the coast of County Clare. From the top you can see ocean as far as the eye can reach - the next land in that direction is North America, about 5,000 km away.

The cliffs are made of layers of stone, like a giant stack of pancakes. Each layer was laid down by ancient seas, one on top of the other, over 300 million years ago - long before the dinosaurs.

Thousands of seabirds nest on the cliff faces. Puffins, with their bright orange beaks, dig burrows in the grassy tops in summer. Below them, guillemots and razorbills crowd onto the narrow ledges. The air is full of swooping and calling.

On a sunny day the cliffs glow gold above a deep blue ocean. On a windy day the waves crash so hard that the spray rises hundreds of metres in the air. The Cliffs of Moher are one of the most-visited natural places in Ireland.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01What does it tell us that the rock at the cliffs is older than the dinosaurs?
  2. 02Why might a bird choose to nest on a vertical cliff instead of a safe tree?
  3. 03If you were standing at the top of the cliffs, what would you want to shout out across the ocean?
Try this

Classroom activity

On a sheet of A3 paper, draw the cliffs in cross-section. Mark 214 m up the side. Then add: a person at the top (for scale), some seabirds in the air, the layers of ancient rock, and the Atlantic Ocean below. Compare it with the height of your school building.