ON THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY:Paul Henry clouds billow over a glassy sea during another 10 hours of sunshine up the Mayo coastline
“I’VE NEVER seen anything like this before,” says Kealey Sullivan (18) from Boston, “the mixture of rolling hills and big mountains right next to the ocean; the fishing and the sheep. Everything looks just so beautiful.”
Yes, indeed it does. Another day in the west of Ireland on the Wild Atlantic Way and another 10 hours of perfect sunshine – billowing Paul Henry clouds over those Paul Henry Achill blue mountains, the sea a glassy calm sea and bird song filling the air.
Kealey was cycling the Greenway, the cycle and walking path linking Achill and Westport, via Mulrany and Newport. She was with her pal, Kelly Goonan (18), and Kelly’s parents, lawyer Tom and doctor Kate.
Tom’s family emigrated to the US after the second World War from their home west of Bangor near Blacksod Bay. Yesterday was the last day of the holiday for the Goonans and Kealey.
They had nothing but good things to say about their stay in Ireland and thought the Greenway a knockout. When I told them of Fáilte Ireland’s plans for the Wild Atlantic Way, they declared that a winner as well.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity for tourism in outdoor activities like this and in encouraging people to view the beauty of a place,” says Tom. “There’s no destruction and very little wear and tear [on the environment].”
The 42km Greenway is a success story for Mayo (Kate thought everyone associated with it, such as the bicycle hire firm, were helpful and good value for money) and is the sort of initiative Fáilte Ireland hopes to run in parallel with the motoring aspect of the Wild Atlantic Way.
Ian Stobbart would no doubt leap at more walking options were they available.
“It’s easy enough to follow the Greenway,” says the Newcastle- born employee of South Dublin County Council when I meet him walking from Newport towards Achill. “It’s very well signposted, not too hilly and off the road. That’s the main thing; you are in the middle of the countryside with fields and scenery and you don’t need a map. It is very safe.”
BMW 1200 Adventure motorbikes are not allowed on the Greenway (and quite right too) so I hightail it off back to the N59 – through Newport, looking pretty in the sun with its fine river entering the bay and its signature seven-arched old red sandstone former railway bridge.
The sandstone may well have come from Corraun Hill, the landmass just before Achill Sound. There’s a drive, the Atlantic Road, that lures me on to the L1404, that amply rewards deviation.
The narrow road hugs the coast all the way around to Corraun village giving fantastic views back across Clew Bay to Croagh Patrick and the rear of Clare Island.
For part of the way, there is no fencing, no wire; the land is open and seems all the more natural for it. Tufts of bog cotton dance gently in the breeze; rising lark song fills the air. There is no one around, just a few cars. The sense of solitude and peace is powerful.
Across the Sound and through Keel, two corries, ice cream-like bowl-shaped scoops gouged by glacial ice, are clearly visible on the side of Croaghaun Mountain.
In Dooagh village, below the mountain, there’s a memorial to Don Allum, the first person to row the Atlantic both ways and who landed there in his 19ft 10in boat on September 4th, 1987.
But it is the corries and their apparent absence of lakes that interests me. The road out of Dooagh rises very steeply up the side of the mountain and a sign announces Lough Accorymore dam and Achill Water Treatment Works. So what nature didn’t quite achieve – corrie lakes – man did and a very pretty mountain lake reservoir it is.
Keem Strand is virtually empty; three, maybe four, people are on it in glorious sunshine.
As a boy, I found amethyst in the rocks above Keem and was captivated by the crystal’s purple beauty – purple, the colour of the Irish summer. Sadly, the amethyst is all washed away now, the man running the mobile sweetie shop by the beach tells me.
The natural world is on show to great effect, however, back on the N59 heading further north. At Ballycroy, thoughtfully designed information and exhibition centre for the Ballycroy National Park ( NPWS.ie) merits a stop.
The park, the most recent addition, in 1998, to Ireland’s collection of national parks, is some 27,000 acres, 65 per cent of it Owenduff Bog.
An exhibition explains why places such as this in Ireland are so captivating, so important. Simple displays use images and sounds to explain the life of the bog, its plants and flowers; its inhabitants, the lizards and plovers, merlin and grouse, snipe, Greenland white fronted geese and golden eagles; as well as the geology of Achill and west Mayo. And there’s a whaling exhibition too.
A wonderful place to bring children.
As Seamus Heaney wrote in The Peninsula, his poem about driving and looking and taking it all in: “. . . Then drive back home, still with nothing to say
“Except that now you will uncode all landscapes.”
Tomorrow:Belmullet to Sligo
Read more about Peter Murtagh’s journey at irishtimes.com/blogs/wildatlanticwaY