Achill Island is the largest island of Ireland, and is situated off the west coast. It has a population of 2,700 in an area of 57 square miles (148 km²). It is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Gob an Choire (Achill Sound) and Poll Raithní (Polranny), so it is possible to drive onto the island.
As of August 2008, this bridge is undergoing renovation; a temporary causeway is in place. This is a swing bridge which allows the passage of small boats. A bridge was first completed here in 1887, and replaced by the current structure in 1949.
Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dumha Éige (Dooega) and Dugort. Early human settlements are believed to have been established on Achill around 3000 BC. A paddle dating from this period was found at the Crannóg near Dookinella.
The island is 87% peat bog. The parish of Achill also includes the Curraun peninsula. The people of Curraun consider themselves Achill people, and most natives of Achill refer to this area as being 'in Achill'. In the summer of 1996, the RNLI decided to station a lifeboat at Kildownet.
It is believed that at the end of the Neolithic Period (around 4000 BC), Achill had a population of 500-1,000 people. The island would have been mostly forest until the Neolithic people began crop cultivation. Settlement increased during the Iron Age, and the dispersal of small forts around the coast indicates the warlike nature of the times.
 | Grace O'Malley, Granuaille is
known in folklore as 'the Pirate Queen', in recognition of her practice
of levying charges on any vessels sailing in the waters she controlled
from her bases at Achill (Kildavnet Tower - pictured), and Clare Island, (the latter covered further down this page.)This
remarkable woman lived from approximately 1530 to 1603 and was a member
of the O'Malley Clan, a Gaelic family group that controlled the Clew
Bay area of Mayo. |
She was revered as a fierce warrior, with the added intrigue that her adventures and battles were effectively undermining the authority of the British rulers of the time. She famously sailed to London for a summit with Queen Elizabeth I, a meeting of possibly the two most powerful women in Europe at the time. |  |
In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was much migration to Achill from other parts of Ireland, particularly Ulster, due to the political and religious turmoil of the time. For a while there were two different dialects of Irish being spoken on Achill. This led to many town lands being recorded as having two names during the 1824 Ordnance Survey, and some maps today give different names for the same place. Achill Irish still has many traces of Ulster Irish.
Despite some unsympathetic development, the island retains some striking natural beauty. The cliffs of Croaghaun on the western end of the island are the highest sea cliffs in Europe but are inaccessible by road.  | Near the westernmost point of Achill, Achill Head, is Keem Bay. Keel
Beach is quite popular with tourists and some locals as a surfing
location. South of Keem beach is Moytoge Head, which with its rounded
appearance drops dramatically down to the ocean. An old British
observation post, built during World War I to prevent the Germans from
landing arms for the Irish Republican Army is still standing on Moytoge. |
The mountain Slievemore (672m) rises dramatically in the north of the island and the Atlantic Drive (along the south/west of the island) has some outstandingly beautiful views. On the slopes of Slievemore, there is an abandoned village. The Deserted Village is traditionally thought to be a remnant from The Great Famine.
Recent archaeological research suggests the village was occupied year-round at least as early as the 19th century, though it is known to have served as a seasonally occupied booley village by the first half of the 20th century. A booley is a village occupied only during part of the year, such as a resort community, a lake community, or (as the case on Achill) a place to live while tending flocks or herds of ruminants during winter or summer pasturing. Specifically, some of the people of Dooagh and Pollagh would migrate in the summer to Slievemore and then go back to Dooagh in the autumn.
Just west of the deserted village is an old Martello tower, again built by the British to warn of any possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. The area also boasts an approximately 5,000-year old Neolithic tomb. Achillbeg (Acaill Beag - Little Achill) is a small island just off Achill's southern tip. Its inhabitants were resettled on Achill in the 1960s.
While a number of attempts at setting up small industrial units on the island have been made, the economy of the island is largely dependent on tourism. Subventions from Achill people working abroad, in particular in Britain and the US allowed many families to remain living in Achill throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the advent of Ireland's 'Celtic Tiger' economy, fewer Achill people are forced to look for work abroad.
Agriculture plays a small role and is only profitable because of European Union subsidies. The fact that the island is mostly bog means that its potential for agriculture is limited largely to sheep farming, these being unfenced so are roaming free everywhere. In the past, fishing was a significant activity but this aspect of the economy is small now. At one stage, the island was known for its shark fishing, the Basking Shark in particular was fished for its valuable liver oil. There was a big spurt of growth in tourism in the '60s and '70s, before which life was tough and difficult on the island. Since that heyday, the common perception is that tourism in Achill has been slowly declining.
In 2006, the population was 2,700. The island's population has declined from around 6,000 before the Great Hunger.
Because of the inhospitable climate, very few houses date from before the 1900. An example of the style of earlier housing can be seen in the Deserted Village. Even the houses in this village represent a relatively comfortable class of dwelling as, even as recently as a hundred years ago, some people still used Beehive style houses (small circular single-roomed dwellings with a hole in ceiling to let out smoke). Many of the oldest and most picturesque inhabited cottages date from the activities of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, a body set up around the turn of the 20th century to improve the welfare for inhabitants of small villages and towns. Most of the homes in Achill at the time were very small and tightly packed together in villages. The CDB subsidised the building of new, more spacious (though still small by modern standards) homes outside of the traditional villages.
Some of the recent building development on the island (over the last 30 years or so) has been contentious and in many cases is not as sympathetic to the landscape as the earlier style of whitewashed raised gable cottages. Because of generous tax incentives, many holiday homes have been built over the last ten years. This building boom has brought benefits, but at a cost. On the one hand it has provided much-needed employment for the local people, has increased the demand and value for suitable development land and has enabled the island to support more tourists. On the other hand, many of these houses have been built in prominent scenic areas and have damaged traditional views of the island while lying empty for most of the year. They may also be contributing to the declining fortunes for the traditional beneficiaries of tourism - b+bs, pubs and guest-houses.
A number of famous people are associated with Achill. The artist Paul Henry stayed on the island for a number of years in the early 1900s and some of his most famous paintings are of the dramatic local landscape. Not long after arriving, he threw his return train ticket into the sea near Purteen Harbour.
The Nobel Prize winning author, Heinrich Böll, visited the island and wrote of his experience in his Irish Journal Irisches Tagebuch. The Bölls later bought a cottage near Dugort and lived in it periodically until 2001 when they donated it to be used as an artists' residence.
Graham Greene also spent time on Achill and the English writer Honor Tracy lived there. Singer James Kilbane lives on the island.
| Other notable residents include country and western starlet, Ciara
Levelle, whose bid for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest was dashed
after losing to Dustin the Turkey! |
