Day 13 - Wilder Atlantic Way

October 05, 2025

Storm Amy has passed and the weather was better today, although still a bit windy and slightly colder.

Today we continued our trip up the Wild Atlantic Way, the coastal road that runs along the western coast of Ireland. It seems like every nights' host tells us our next leg has the most beautiful stop in all of Ireland. We will admit that we do see some spectacular views, and we’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite. Today we had two stops that were pretty good. Really good in fact.

Today we were in county Mayo, heading from Westport to Sligo, which is in Sligo County. There are 26 counties in Ireland, similar to US counties. We have been in Dublin, Wicklow, Carlos, Kilkenny, Waterford, Tipperary, Limerick, Kerry, Claire, Galway, Mayo, and Sligo counties.

Our first stop today was Rockfleet Castle. It's more of a keep or fortified house than a castle. It's been recently renovated by the OPW, the Office of Public works. They are the government body responsible for maintaining many of the most historic sites in Ireland. The O'Malley family controlled the castle, specifically Grace, a daring female family member. It was very unusual for a woman to hold that kind of power. Grace was also basically a pirate. A sort of good pirate, from the Irish perspective. She raided shipping vessels off the west coast, most of which were English. So she was sticking it to the man, so to speak.

We then continued on to Achill Island, a large island off the coast that was connected via a short bridge. We drove to the very end of the island and out to Keen Beach. We drove up a steep hill at the end of the island and when we crested the hill, we were gifted a fantastic view of the beach and surrounding hills. Lots of pictures...that won’t do it justice.

Our next stop was Wild Nefin National Park. This park is dedicated to preserving the bogs, animals, and plants in the park. The park had a wonderful visitor center with loads of information. We were especially interested in how peat was harvested and how damaging that is to the bog eco system. Peat was commercially harvested for years, but now it is limited to small, personal use only. It turns out that bogs are wonderful carbon filters and a great help to climate change if they are allowed to thrive.

Cut out sections are where peat has been harvested. It takes 1000 years to grow 1 meter of peat if conditions are good.

Heidi is holding by a dried brick of peat.
This will burn in about 20 minutes.
Houses will burn a large bag or basket per night.

Ceide Fields was our next stop. The museum there describes the early people who settled in this area 5000-7000 years ago. They were farmers and herders, and they built an extensive series of stone walls that were used to enclose their small farm steads. The farmers were forced to abandon their farms at some point long ago when the bogs encroached on their farm ground. The walls were rediscovered in 1934 as peet was being cut from the bogs in the area and exposed the rock walls underneath.

Scientists poke the ground using a long metal pole
to feel for rock remains over and over, and mark each neolithic wall with white posts for further excavation.

Those ancient farmers had a great view

Our final stop was a cliff and sea viewing point called Downpatrick. It was quite impressive. The waves were quite high, crashing against the cliffs. We did a short hike up the cliffs to a viewing point that overlooks the ocean and the Dun Briste sea stack, a bit of the cliff disconnected from the mainland.