Achill Island

Achill Island (Irish; Acaill, Oileán Acla) in County Mayo is the largest island off Ireland, and is situated off the west coast. It has a population of 2700. Its area is 57 square miles (146 square kilometres). Achill is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Achill Sound and Polranny, so it is possible to drive onto the island. This is a swing bridge which allows the passage of small boats. A bridge was first completed here in 1886, and replaced by the current structure after The Emergency. Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dooega and Dugort. The island's football pitch and two secondary schools are on the mainland at Polranny. Early settlements are believed to have been established on Achill around 3000 BCE. A paddle dating from this period was found at the crannog near Dookinella.

The island is 87 per cent peat bog. The parish of Achill also includes the Corraun peninsula. The people of Corraun 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.

History

It is believed that at the end of the Neolithic Period (around 4000 BCE), Achill had a population of 500-1000 people. The island would have been mostly forest until the Neolithic people began crop cultivation. Settlememt increased during the Iron Age, and the dispersal of small forts around the coast indicate the warlike nature of the times. Granuaile maintained a castle at Kildownet in the sixteenth century.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth 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 townlands being recorded as having two names during the 1824 Ordnace Survey, and some maps today give different names for the same place. Achill Irish still has many traces of Ulster Irish.

Sights

Keel beach is quite popular with tourists and some locals as a surfing location. Another extreme point of the island 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 landing arms for the Irish Republican Army separatist movement, is still standing on Moytoge. The mountain Slievemore (671 metres) rises dramatically in the centre of the island and the Atlantic drive (along the south/west of the island) has some dramatically beautiful views. On the slopes of Slievemore, there is an abandoned village ("The Deserted Village") The Deserted Village at Slievemore was once thought to be a remnant village from An Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger, see Great Famine). However, recent developments suggest that it is a Booley. Specifically, the people of Dooagh and Pollagh would migrate in the summer to Slievemore (Transhumance.), and then go back to Dooagh in the fall. Just west of the deserted village is an old Martello tower, again built by the British to warn of any possible French invasion. The area also boasts an approximately 5000-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 1960's. There is a mural of a surfer on the gable of a pub in Cashel.

Economy

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 England, Scotland and the United States 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 subsidies. The fact that the island is mostly bog means that it is limited - largely to sheep farming. 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, basking shark in particular was fished for its valuable liver oil. There was a big spurt of growth in tourism in the 1960s and 1970s before which life was tough and difficult on the island. Since that heyday, the common perception is that tourism has been slowly declining.

Architecture

Some of the recent building development on the island (over the last 40 years or so) has been contentious and in many cases is not as sympathetic to the landscape as the earlier style of whitewashed barged roofed cottages. Because of the inhospitable climate, very few houses date from before the twentieth century. An example of the style of earlier housing can be seen in the "Deserted Village" ruins near the graveyard at the foot of Slievemore. 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 inhabitated cottages date from the activities of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland - a body set up around the turn of the twentieth century in Ireland 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.

Famous people

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 landscape of the island. 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 Island.

External links

Islands of Mayo