The West Clare Railway (WCR) originally operated in County Clare, Ireland, between 1887 and 1961. This 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge railway ran from the county town of Ennis, via numerous stopping-points along the West Clare coast to two termini, at Kilrush and Kilkee, with the routes diverging at Moyasta Junction. The system was the last operating narrow gauge passenger system in Ireland and connected with the mainline rail system at Ennis, where a station still stands today for bus and train services to Limerick and Galway. Intermediate stops included Ennistymon, Lahinch and Milltown Malbay.

A preservation society maintains a railway museum at Moyasta Junction station, and successfully re-opened a section of the railway as a passenger-carrying heritage line with diesel traction in the 1990s, and with steam motive power from 2009.

The railway was notorious for poor timekeeping, resulting in litigation and a celebrated comic song.

After the Great Famine ended there was a new growth in local businesses, and the British Government determined that an improved railway system was necessary to aid the recovery of the West of Ireland. The West Clare Railway and the South Clare Railway were built by separate companies, but in practice, the West Clare Railway operated the entire line. The lines met at Milltown Malbay. In due course, the entire line became known as the West Clare Railway.

The 43.4 km-long (27.0 mi) West Clare Railway between Ennis and Milltown Malbay was built a few years earlier than the South Clare Railway. It was authorised by the West Clare Railway Order 1884, which was confirmed by the Tramways (Ireland) Provisional Order (West Clare Railway) Confirmation Act 1884 (47 & 48 Vict. c. ccxvii). The first sod was cut on 26 January 1885 at Milltown Malbay by Charles Stewart Parnell MP, although actual work on the line had begun in November 1884.

In late February 1887, the Athenry and Ennis Railway (A&E) filed an injunction to prevent the West Clare Railway from accessing lands it had built on that the A&E had previously claimed but not yet constructed on for itself. The case went to arbitration in March 1887. The West Clare Railway initially agreed to pay £51 annually for the right to build on the land, then in a second agreement reached on 27 June 1888, the West Clare Railway was ordered to pay rent at £60 annually to the A&E (which later became part of the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway) for use of the land.

The line was opened on 2 July 1887. The notes for construction of the line were closed in December 1887.

The South Clare Railway built the extension from Milltown Malbay to Kilrush, Cappagh Pier (Kilrush Pier) and Kilrush docks with a branch to Kilkee from Moyasta. The line was proposed in 1889, authorised by the South Clare Railways Order 1890 which was confirmed by the Tramways Order in Council (Ireland) South Clare Railways Confirmation Act 1890 (53 & 54 Vict. c. ccx), with work starting on the extension in October 1890 and opening on 11 May 1892. The extension was worked by the West Clare Railway and was initially dogged by poor service and time keeping, but this later improved. Some of the service irregularity was attributed, in a report given at the railway's annual meeting in 1894, to a requirement set by the Board of Trade to run separate passenger and goods trains rather than mixed trains.