Achill is one of many Irish seaside resorts where numerous unlovely holiday homes stand empty for much of the year. Rosita Boland visits a winter ghost town.
Achill crouches on the horizon, vanishing in and out of sight as the rain sweeps across the landscape like curtains being opened and closed at high speed. It's raining. No, it's not, there's the sun. Rain again. Now there's blinding sunshine, now rainbows. The cold, clean wind pushes my car across the bridge at Achill Sound and screeches in through the gap at the top of the window. It's exhilarating, this weather. But all the same, famous as Achill is for its beaches, I'm not sure I'd feel like going for a swim at this time of year.
In summer, this place is crowded. In winter, it's more or less empty, a ghost town. Achill has long been a traditional seaside destination, with most of the activity spread out between the villages of Dooagh and Keel. The road ends at Keem, a crescent beach with emerald-coloured water and a vertiginous descent: a beach beloved by surfers and photographers in equal parts. There are amethysts concealed in the soil around Keem also, which surface periodically after rain, to be discovered like small gifts.
Achill is a different landscape to Connemara or Kerry. It's just as wild, but is has a completely different atmosphere. There are virtually no lakes and few mountains: Achill itself is one big mountain.
When you come off Achill Sound, you can head left onto the long looping road, called the Atlantic Drive, that keeps close to the edge of the ocean.There must be planning regulations in place here, because there are, thankfully, very few houses on this unspoilt piece of coastline. I see only one house, halfway through my drive. It's a pretty, stone-cut thatched one, with a red door and windows. In one of the windows is a poster for an Achill resident - smiling, hopeful James Kilbane - with a long-outdated entreaty to vote for him in You're A Star.
The Atlantic Drive is even more special these days because it is one of the few places on Achill you can go without seeing one of the many new holiday houses which march across so much of its horizon. The seaside towns tax incentive scheme, launched in 1995, saw scores of holiday houses being built on Achill, many in unlovely developments which resemble mini-urban housing estates.
The first thing that arrests your eye driving into Keel is a development called The Links. It's a mini ghost town, all on its own. There are 16 suburban-looking houses here and they all appear empty and closed up. Blinds are pulled down. There isn't even one car in the place. It looks abandoned. It's ironic, because Achill has long been associated with deserted villages, such as the one at Slievemore. The difference is that those were houses deserted not because of the change in the seasons, but out of circumstances - the Famine.
There are lots of these houses scattered between Keel and Dooagh, some of them in purpose-built developments, like the one that sits on the hill on the way to Keem beach. Big houses, big views. They all look empty. It's odd - a place like Achill that is already isolated somehow looks even lonelier with its landscape of empty houses.
Back in Dooagh, there is evidence everywhere of a village out of season, and drawing breath. The Clew Bay Guest Accommodation and Bar has a garden full of wash-hand basins and toilets; clearly, renovations are going on here. The B&Bs and restaurants are strung out along the main, and only, street - the West End, Katie's Collage, the Croaghan restaurant. All closed. One has a garden full of gnomes painted in red and green, the Mayo colours. Beyond stretches a beach, wide and empty.
Proprietor Lourdie Cafferkey sits up on a high stool at the functionally-named The Pub. "We're the only pub open during the day in the winter," she says. "The Wave Crest only opens at night. The winter is all about the locals. You wouldn't be able to move here in the summer. There wouldn't be a house to be had in the whole place. But look at it now."
She indicates with a gesture round her premises. It's early afternoon, but the fire is burning already, and the bar's solitary customer is perched right in front of the fire, holding his Guinness and silently watching the flames.
Some of the resident locals like it quiet, though. Cafferkey says that artist Camille Souter regularly comes in for a drink in the evening with friends, and that she prefers the winter. Cafferkey is sanguine about the holiday houses. "They were originally supposed to be for the benefit of the local people, but it didn't really work out like that."
Possibly the foolproof test of whether a holiday destination turns into a ghost town in winter is whether or not you can get something to eat off-season. It's lunchtime. I'm not looking for gourmet cuisine: soup and/or a sandwich would do grand. The Pub doesn't serve any food in winter. Why would they bother? The locals eat at home and there aren't any tourists.
Seamus and Chrissie Corrigan's bar further down the road isn't serving food of any kind either. "The winter is dreary," Chrissie concedes.
Mary Colemen is 84. She has been running Achill Island Pottery for the past 42 years, and she still does all the glazing herself. She is in the middle of doing her annual accounts and glad of a diversion. Over the decades, she has seen a change in the type of tourist that comes to Achill.
"People used to come for a quiet time for a week or a fortnight, usually full board. Remember, hardly anyone had cars then, so when you were here, you stayed here. People drop in and out now." One thing hasn't changed, though, she says. "It's still very lonely here in winter".
At the Achill Head Hotel, the door is open. To the left is the public bar and to the right is the reception area for the hotel. I'm definitely hungry now, and my hopes are up. I ring the bell on the reception desk. And wait.
And wait. Nobody appears. There's a sign by the desk which says "If Reception is unattended, please contact bar". I cross the foyer and go into the Shark's Head Bar. There's a poster up advertising a band called the Rebel Heroes, who are due to play there the following week, which proves that the place is not closed, although it seems that way to me. I holler. Nobody appears. I holler louder. Nothing.