County Mayo
“Breathe the wild landscape of Ireland”, states a informative brochure on County Mayo. We drove inland with the Ox Mountains in the distance, to Ballina, the largest city of County Mayo. Stopped at the Tourist Office and picked up a number of pamphlets, maps and sheets on the area. We were interested in going to the sites on the North Mayo Sculpture Trial but we just didn’t have the time, although we were going along roughly the same route for it – from Ballina through Ballycastle to Belmullet. Along the scenic coast with its unspoiled beauty, eight international artists created fifteen works, celebrating Mayo’s five thousand years of history and achievements.
Crossing over the River Moy, known for its excellent fishing, we took Route 314 to Killala. The town was supposedly founded by St. Patrick and is another place that claims to have had the first Christian church. It had a tall, Round Tower, which was always so thrilling for me when we found one. Also, we saw our first thatch-roofed house.
But Killala was made famous by the landing of a French fleet on August 22, 1798. They numbered one thousand men with a promise of fifteen thousand to come after them. The French had helped the American colonists in our struggle against England for our successful bid for independence. Then the French Revolution had occurred imbuing the common man with the noble ideas of equality and fraternity. The French beheaded their monarch and thought a new age was dawning. They were willing to help the Irish win their independence from the King of England.
Wolfe Tone, the founder of the Society of United Irishmen, had convinced the French to take an expedition of forty-three ships with fifteen thousand men to Ireland, with the goal of landing at Bantry Bay in southern Ireland in 1796. Aboard one of the ships, Tone frantically watched as the swirling wind kept the ships from landing and they returned to France. The Irish had uprisings in Wexford in the southeast and Antrim in the northeast. With a large French force landing in the west in Mayo and Donegal, the Irish all over the country could have risen up. But sadly for the Irish, this was not to be. No other French forces arrived. The Irish suffered a crushing defeat by the same Cornwallis that America had defeated in our war.
Further along the road, we came to Kilcummin and the beautiful beach where the French General Humbert had landed. It was exciting for me to see all this because I was currently reading a book about this whole unfortunate, failed revolution. The book is titled The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan. It gives a good account of both sides.
Beyond Kilcummin, we took a narrower road out to Downpatrick Head to see the impressive Dun Briste which I had seen on a postcard. Dun Briste is called a sea stack, a column of rock with grass on the top, emerging out of the water next to the cliffs. But we couldn’t take our car out to the end and didn’t have time to walk. So we headed to Ballycastle and stopped at Mary’s Bakery and Tea Rooms. We had tuna fish sandwiches and cokes.
Past Ballycastle we rode right along the coast on Route 314 with fairly, steep cliffs along the way. At Ceide Fields, we could finally see Dun Briste. Ceide Fields, which we didn’t tour, is described in our Lonely Planet Guidebook “as the oldest enclosed landscape in Europe and most extensive Stone Age monument in the world.” It has mainly to do with agriculture and dates to only five thousand years. We had just been to Carrowmore which seemed a lot more awesome.
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Men working in a bog |
We entered our first bog and were fascinated with the people digging for peat. Some just dug haphazardly while others did it in neat lines. Gone were the hedges and fences, so sheep were roaming free on the road and cows were sitting beside it. This made the driving a little more cautious. We liked this wild, uninhabited area. We took another side road which took us around a small peninsular through Pollatomish and ending at Barnatra. They have planted spruce trees in an apparent re-forestation project. There were lovely rhododendrons in bloom. My TC (Travel Companion) got out and picked a wild, yellow Louisiana iris growing in clumps in the bogs. That’s what we call these plants at home but it looks like they are native to Ireland as well.
Arriving in Belmullet, we felt we were in one of those “end of the world” places again. It’s part of the Gaeltacht. These are places where Gaelic is encouraged as the only spoken language. Signs are written only in Gaelic, with no English, which makes it hard on travelers like us.
The Gaeltacht area encompasses small, isolated communities in some of the most rugged coastlines of the country. They include parts of Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and inland, Meath. In fact, Belmullet is one of the least traveled areas of the country. We came to Blacksod Bay where we saw a very funny sign, which we were to see again and again. It is an icon of a car plunging into the water, which showed what would happen to us if we continued straight out on the pier.
The approach to the town was along a long canal or estuary with many B&Bs but I didn’t want to stay there. So we turned left and started looking for others. Disappointingly, it looked like we were in some sort of suburbia. We asked a man walking along the road if there were any B&Bs out here. He conferred with a woman who was also walking. They told us of Murphy’s up on the hill, painted green and blue. We found the place and it was perfect. Maurin Mcguire Murphy was the nicest, Irish hostess we had!
A cozy sitting room in the corner of the house was for the guest’s use. Windows were on both sides of the room and it gave onto a stupendous view. Blacksod Bay surrounded us with the Bellet Peninsula across the way. Stunning Mt. Slievemore rose to the left on Achill Island with the slightly, smaller, saddleback Mt. Croaghaun at the end of the island. I sat and wrote in my journal. But my head bobbed up every minute or so to look at this panorama.
We decided to skip going out to eat or to a pub and just soak up this environment. My TC went shopping and bought a bottle of Portuguese red wine, some sharp, Irish cheddar cheese and that tasty, brown soda bread. Maurin came in for a chat and started a peat fire in the fireplace. It was a first for us and we thoroughly enjoyed it, not so much for the heat as it wasn’t really cold, but for the atmosphere. The peat produces clean heat, without any smell.
Since we were almost surrounded by water, I thought sure we’d experience our first Irish sunset but the sun set over to our right behind the only part of visible land. Maurin told us more about the Gaeltacht. She and her husband always speak Gaelic at home but she says her children are not that interested in the language. So she doesn’t know what the future holds. Maurin had put my yellow, Louisiana iris along with another flower from her rock garden in a small vase for me. She sang in Gaelic as she did things around the house. So once again we had Irish music. Maurin complained that it never got cold here. I think that is incredible! Here this land is jutting straight into the North Atlantic Ocean with no buffers and it never gets below freezing or even close to that, according to her. We went to bed very content and happy in this house full of the hospitality of Maurin.
Tuesday morning dawned another clear and sunny day. When we sat down in the dining room, we noticed a plaque on the wall stating: “Best B&B cook in 1998.” We were impressed and congratulated Maurin on this. She said she won it in a national competition. We finally found out what the two slices of fried food was that we were served every morning. It is potato panbread and Maurin is very proud of hers. I had yogurt for the first time then my two eggs, potato panbread, toast, jam, tea!
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Belmullet |
We stayed till almost eleven talking with Maurin. Her place is called Drom Caoin and her telephone number is (097) 81195. Her place is our number one choice of a place to stay in Ireland. We drove down the main street of Belmullet, which we wished we had more time to explore. It’s the only town we visited that has a standing clock in the middle of the street. But we were off on Route 313 to Bangor, then took N59 through Ballycroy to Mallaranny. This is where you can take a bridge to Achill Island.
On Achill Head are said to be the highest cliffs in Europe – blarney? It is supposed to have some of the most amazing cliff faces in Europe. I’ve seen postcards and pictures of the end of the island. I think you’d have to go by boat to fully appreciate it or possibly you can do this by climbing Mt. Croaghaun. But I’m not much into climbing. There’s also an Atlantic drive “which is not for the unsure driver.”
We rode beside or near Clew Bay as we took N59 through Newport and Westport, which had been our planned destinations for last night. But I was so glad we had discovered Belmullet rather than stay at one of these more trendy spots. The area before Newport is known as the Nephin Drive, full of small lakes, clumps of wild iris, rhododendrons and the Nephin Beg Range in the background. Newport is said to have three hundred and sixty-five islands nearby in the Bay. Nearing Westport, we first came in sight of the sacred mountain, Croagh Patrick.
Located six miles west of Westport on the Clew Bay road to Louisburgh, Crough Patrick is 2510 ft. high. Here in 441 A.D., St. Patrick spent the forty days of Lent on this mountain, praying for the conversion of the Irish people to Christianity. On the top of this peak, St. Patrick performed his legendary act of ridding Ireland of its snake population. Today, it a place of great pilgrimage and more than sixty thousand people a year climb it. I just saw another show on the Travel Channel where a girl climbed here. She made the ascent through sun and rain but was rewarded with a magnificent view of the west coast with Clew Bay and its islands.
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Doolough Valley |
At Louisburgh, we turned onto Route 335 for one of the most beautiful, inland rides of our trip. The scenery was enhanced by the sunlight which created wonderful patterns of light and shadow on the bare, green mountains. This is called the Doolough (Dark Lake) Valley and is bounded by the Mweelrea Mountains to the west and the Murrisk to the east. This area was particularly hard hit by the famine in the 19th century, when the population dropped from eight million to four. We stopped many times along the way to take photos.
We reached Killary Harbor which is a narrow, long estuary, like a low fjord. The road continued around it, passing Aasleagh Falls, another photo op. Went through the picturesque town of Leenane. For the first time, we saw the long, narrow rafts floating in the water which are used to catch mussels. We stopped at a pretty clump of purple rhododendrons, which I was able to use in the foreground, as I took a shot of the outlet going out to the sea.
Back home, we rented the video “The Field” starring Richard Harris. It’s a tragic tale. But it is set in this mystical, magical valley that I always will be able to spot in any movie of the area.
