Friday April 29th: Achill Island, Ireland
Bob: Our book of driving tours of Ireland included one of a loop around Achill Island that looked very nice. The island is connected to the mainland by a small bridge, something like the Isle of Skye in Scotland that we visited during Wanderung 21. So after breakfast we drove around the coast to the bridge, which turned out to be a modern but quite pretty white suspension bridge with gracefully arched beams on either side of the road and a network of white metal tubes directly supporting the roadway. |
Monika: Today we were going to do one of the scenic drives from the "Back roads of Ireland" book, in particular we were going to travel around the island of Achill which is on the north west coast of Ireland. From Westport, our drive started by going along the bottom of Clew Bay to Newport and then up the northern coast of Clew Bay to the bridge across to Achill Island. |
Bob: Once on Achill Island we turned left to follow the Atlantic Coast Road around the southern seashore. We missed finding a sacred well that should have been near an old church, but we did find the unmistakable high, square stone fortress erected by Grace O'Malley to guard this part of the shore of Clew Bay. Although smaller in scale than the large square stone fortresses constructed by the Irish rulers in the days of the warring chieftains, the stone tower was in a remarkably good state of preservation. Apparently the ruins were stable enough that it was safe for people to climb about, so we explored both the exterior and the interior. The floors had fallen from the interior, of course, leaving it to be a hollow core or shell, but you could see the corner projections where the joists supporting the floor would have been braced so you could get come idea on how it had all fit together. It wasn't luxurious in the slightest, but it looked like a good fort for defending one's territory. |
Monika: From there we started to go around the island. Where the narrows met the bay and the ocean, one of Grainaille's (English: Grace O'Malley) forts could be found. It was a three story tower castle right there by the water. The outside was still intact but on the inside there was nothing left. |
Bob: Just across from the fort I found a couple of the old, tumble-down stone cottages that dot the landscape in the older, less-developed parts of Ireland. These cottages had fallen in sufficiently long ago to have plants growing in and around the old stone walls, which was very picturesque. |
Monika: Bob always likes to take pictures of a good ruin. So when he saw some fallen in houses across the street, he could not help himself. |
Bob: After Grace O'Malley's fort, the Atlantic Coast Road rose up on cliffs overlooking the bay to the South and a series of rocky, craggy headlands continuing on to the West. Wow! Truly beautiful views! |
Monika: From here we drove along the Atlantic Coast Road, a cliff road that opened up to dramatic views of the coastline of Achill Island. We stopped several times to take pictures of the cliffs and the white beaches. |
Bob: We continued on to Keel, a nice little town with very much a "beach resort" flavor to it. The beach itself was a huge, curving, crescent of a sandy beach maybe 1/2 mile long, similar to Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda that we had visited on Ausflug 35. The water was similarly clear and a beautiful aquamarine color, but it was cold and there were no coral reefs just offshore, of course! |
Monika: A little further north we came to the little seaside town of Keel. We stopped at the beach, hoping for a bathroom, but instead found a wonderful beach. I wished the water looked warmer, but I wasn't going to risk frostbite by going swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in April! |
Bob: We followed the Atlantic Coast Road out to its bitter end at another, smaller beach called Keem Beach. With at least 500 foot or so hills rising steeply on the 3 landward sides of the bay, the beach was very sheltered. We felt almost no wind there despite having felt a very fresh breeze at all of our other stops that morning. |
Monika: We had been told that Keel had a nice restaurant for lunch. But it was still early, so we decided to drive out to the end of the island, to Keem beach. It lay in a sheltered bay, and we actually saw a kid or two in the water, but most were playing in the sand. The bay was sheltered, because the end of the island was a high cliff. You looked at it, and thought to yourself: "next stop Newfoundland." |
Bob: Backtracking to Keel, we turned North to visit a "deserted village" mentioned on our book of Irish drives. That turned out to be, indeed, a village of old stone huts that had been abandoned in the 1860s as I recall. Although I had expected it to be abandoned as a result of the famine as we had seen on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland during Wanderung 9, in this case most of the villagers had simply left when fishing opportunities opened up in a nearby town. |
Monika: Back at Keel we stopped for lunch at the Beehive Restaurant and Craft Shop, eating a nice lunch and admiring the handicrafts. From there we went on to the deserted villages. This was a row of at least 20 stone houses built along the side of a hill that had been deserted during the 1860's. The houses all had more or less fallen in. |
Bob: I followed the old main street through the center of about 20 or so tumble-down stone cottages, thoroughly enjoying taking pictures of the ruins. |
Monika: All over Ireland you see these abandoned stone houses, but to see that many in a row is somewhat unnerving. You wonder whether the place is haunted at night. |
Bob: Returning to the mainland, we made one fruitless excursion in search of a good viewpoint, but got lost and were instead treated to a drive around the Irish seacoast on the tertiary roads. After a full day of that kind of driving, I was exhausted and took a long nap shortly after we returned to our B&B for the night. |
Monika: On we went to a supposed megalithic stone tomb. There was a sign at the road and arrow pointing up. Bob and I started going up, and up, and up. When after half a kilometer, we had not reached the tomb, we wondered whether we were on another wild goose chase. Bob thought he saw something like a tomb another half a kilometer or so up and took some pictures. I am not convinced; but we both decided it was not worth it and turned around. |
Bob: Later on we all walked down the hill to see the end of Quay Road down at the waterfront, and then picked up some foodstuffs for dinner on the way back. We were glad to find out that Kate and William had actually said "I Do" or whatever one says at Anglican wedding ceremonies, and had perfect weather for their celebrations. And so to bed. |
Monika: From here we just finished the drive around the island, drove back over the bridge and on to Newport. Between Newport and Westport was supposed a pier where you could get a particularly good view of Croagh Patrick. The turnoff was well marked, but that was the only sign to the pier. After that it was anyone's guess, and we must have guessed wrong because we never got to a pier and just turned around when the road ended. Back at the B&B we checked the internet to look at pictures of the wedding of the year. It looked like a very pretty 'do'. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Map of Drive in Ireland | Epilog |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||