text: Sports As far as Gaelic games are concerned, Clifden is home to Naomh Feichin's Galway GAA club.  Clifden is also home to the Connemara Blacks, a rugby team that draws team members from Connemara.
  In literature
  James Mylet's debut novel Lex is set in Clifden. In 2011 the British newspaper The Guardian described the novel as being set in "the fictional town of Clifden on Ireland's west coast", leading to at least one letter pointing out the inaccuracy of this statement.
  Notable people
  John Patrick Riley (c.1817–c.1850), a Clifden native, deserted from the United States Army after experiencing anti-Catholicism in the United States and what he said was "religious persecution" by U.S. officers. Riley became a major in the Mexican Army with the Saint Patrick's Battalion, a unit of about 200 European immigrants and expatriates, many of whom had deserted from the U.S. army during the Mexican–American War. Clifden commemorates Riley with a bronze street sculpture and the town flies the Mexican flag annually on 12 September.
  John Bamlet Smallman (1849–1916), an Irish-Canadian businessman, was born in Clifden.
  Thomas Whelan (1898–1921), an IRA Volunteer executed by hanging at Mountjoy Gaol during the Irish War of Independence. Now buried as one of The Forgotten Ten at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. An ceremony still commemorates Whelan every year in his native Clifden.
  Town twinning
  Coyoacan, Mexico (2012)
  Southwest Ranches, Florida, United States (2006)