Scenic Place in County Mayo

Clare Island stands at the mouth of Clew Bay off the coast of County Mayo, a substantial island of approximately 16 square kilometres accessible by ferry from Roonagh Quay that combines dramatic Atlantic coastal scenery, an important medieval tower house associated with the pirate queen Grace O'Malley, a Cistercian abbey with remarkable medieval painted ceiling and the finest sea cliffs in County Mayo in one of the most scenically and historically rewarding island visits available on the west coast of Ireland. The tower house at the harbour is associated with Gráinne Mhaol, Grace O'Malley, the sixteenth-century pirate chieftain and sea queen whose control of the maritime routes of Clew Bay and her defiance of English authority made her one of the most celebrated figures in Irish history. Grace O'Malley's career as a pirate, merchant and political leader, culminating in her famous meeting with Queen Elizabeth I in 1593, has made her the subject of numerous books, plays and cultural celebrations, and Clare Island as the seat of her power is a place of considerable cultural pilgrimage. The Cistercian abbey on the island contains medieval wall paintings of remarkable quality, depicting figures, animals and decorative motifs in a freshness of colour that survives from the medieval period in unusually good condition. The abbey was the burial place of Grace O'Malley and the combination of the painted interior and the O'Malley connection makes it one of the most historically resonant small religious buildings in Connacht.

Cong is a picturesque village in County Mayo at the narrow isthmus between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, a settlement of considerable charm whose combination of the ruined Augustinian abbey, the dry canal that was never completed, the extensive cave and swallow hole system and the extraordinary setting beside the grounds of Ashford Castle creates one of the most atmospherically rewarding small villages in Connacht. The village achieved worldwide cultural visibility as the principal filming location for John Ford's 1952 film The Quiet Man and the filming associations have become the dominant tourism narrative. Ashford Castle, the luxury hotel on the edge of the village, is one of the grandest and most celebrated castle hotels in Ireland, a Victorian Gothic castle set in extensive grounds on the shores of Lough Corrib that was developed from the original castle of the de Burgo family and subsequently expanded by the Guinness family in the late nineteenth century into the palatial hotel complex it remains today. The castle grounds and the lough shore are accessible to visitors who wish to see the exterior setting without the hotel tariff. The Augustinian Abbey of Cong, founded in the twelfth century and among the finest Romanesque monastic ruins in Connacht, provides the historical dimension to a village whose character is equally shaped by the natural landscape of the isthmus between the two great Connaught loughs. The system of underground rivers connecting the two lakes and emerging at various swallow holes and caves around the village adds a geological interest to the Abbey ruins.

Keem Bay at the western tip of Achill Island in County Mayo is widely regarded as the most beautiful beach in Ireland, a small arc of brilliant white sand enclosed beneath the dramatic shark's fin profile of Croaghaun mountain and accessible only by the spectacular clifftop road that provides the most dramatic beach approach drive available in Ireland. The combination of the beach quality, the extraordinary mountain setting, the clear turquoise water and the complete absence of commercial development creates a beach experience of exceptional beauty and wildness in one of the most remote accessible corners of the Wild Atlantic Way. The beach faces northwest into the Atlantic Ocean and the clarity of the water, combined with the white sand beneath, creates the turquoise colour characteristic of the finest Atlantic beaches in conditions that belong more to the Caribbean in popular imagination than to the west coast of Ireland. The water is cold throughout the year but the beach provides excellent swimming in calm conditions during the summer months when the Atlantic is at its warmest. The road to Keem Bay from the Achill Sound end of the island traverses the full dramatic length of Achill, the clifftop sections above the Atlantic providing a driving experience of remarkable scenic intensity. The combination of the road journey and the beach destination creates one of the most complete and most rewarding coastal experiences available on the Wild Atlantic Way.

Achill Island off the northwest Mayo coast is the largest island off the Irish coast, connected to the mainland by a bridge and offering some of the most dramatic and most unspoiled Atlantic landscape in Ireland. The combination of the great sea cliffs of Croaghaun, the magnificent beaches of Keem Bay, Dugort and Keel, the bogland and mountain walking and the character of the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht communities that have traditionally inhabited the island creates a destination of exceptional variety and emotional power. The Croaghaun cliffs on the west coast of the island are among the highest sea cliffs in Europe, rising approximately 688 metres from the Atlantic in a near-vertical face that rivals the more famous Cliffs of Moher while being far less visited and far more dramatically exposed. The approach on foot across the open bog of the island's western section adds to the sense of arriving at an edge of the world, and the views from the cliff top along the Atlantic coast in both directions are among the finest in Ireland. Keem Bay at the western tip of the island, enclosed beneath the great cliffs and accessed by a spectacular clifftop road, provides one of the most beautiful and most sheltered beaches in Connacht, its clear turquoise water and fine sand creating an Atlantic beach experience of exceptional quality in a setting quite unlike the more accessible beaches of the east coast.

Westport is the most attractive and most complete planned Georgian town in Ireland, a market town in County Mayo on the shores of Clew Bay whose combination of the octagonal market square, the tree-lined Mall following the canalised Carrowbeg River and the surrounding streets of Georgian town houses creates one of the finest examples of eighteenth-century Irish urban planning. The town was designed by James Wyatt in the 1780s for the Browne family, later Marquesses of Sligo, whose Westport House provides the great Georgian mansion at the heart of the estate. The town's position at the foot of Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain of Ireland's patron saint from whose summit the views encompass the entirety of Clew Bay and the islands that fill it, gives Westport a pilgrim dimension alongside its secular charms. The annual Reek Sunday pilgrimage to the summit of Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday of July attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims who ascend the quartzite cone in the tradition that has been maintained since St Patrick fasted on the summit in 441 AD. The Great Western Greenway, a 42-kilometre off-road cycling and walking trail from Westport to Achill Island following the former Midland Great Western Railway line through the Connaught landscape, provides one of the finest greenway experiences in Ireland. The combination of the town's Georgian quality, the pilgrimage mountain, the greenway and the extraordinary bay landscape makes Westport one of the most rewarding towns in the west of Ireland.

Croagh Patrick, known as the Reek by the people of Mayo, is Ireland's holiest mountain, a quartzite cone rising to 764 metres above Clew Bay in County Mayo whose annual pilgrimage on the last Sunday of July attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims in a tradition of Christian devotion that has been maintained for over 1,500 years. St Patrick is believed to have fasted on the summit for forty days in 441 AD, and the tradition of barefoot ascent that many pilgrims maintain connects the modern observance with the penitential practices of the earliest Irish Christianity. The view from the summit of Croagh Patrick across Clew Bay, with its extraordinary collection of approximately 365 drumlin islands created by the last Ice Age glacier, and across the full extent of Connacht visible on clear days from the Mayo mountains to the Galway coast, is one of the finest in Ireland. The ascent, a serious mountain walk of approximately two to three hours, involves considerable height gain on a rocky path that becomes a pilgrimage route of intense focus on Reek Sunday when the summit is crowded with walkers of all ages and degrees of fitness. The modern visitor centre at the foot of the mountain provides interpretation and the small chapel near the summit provides the spiritual focus for the pilgrimage. The view of Croagh Patrick from the south shore of Clew Bay at sunset, the perfect cone reflected in the still water of the bay, is one of the most frequently reproduced images of the Mayo landscape.