More Achill!

Just behind the beach at Doogort is a wide expanse of grass that is kept closely cropped by the hardy blackface sheep that are free to roam. Here we were free to try the kite and Dawn had great success!

The cutting of peat is everywhere and it really interests me. Here's a photo of a real peat cut-face with the unspoilt ground on the right and disturbed to the left. There are many places that were cut so many years ago that at first glance they just appear to be very hummocky ground. It's only when you look more closely that you realise the moss reeds and rushes have taken over and disguise it. 

With our solar panel on the roof we feel very modern, which is true but this also comes with a big investment price tag and total reliance on complex manufactured products. No doubt peat burning will die out but there's an awful lot of peat still being cut, stacked and stored "in the bog" for later pick-up.

I wandered down the harbour quay at Purteen, near Keel and talked to an old(er) guy who was fishing for Mackerel. I assumed he was an islander but he retired here fifteen years ago from Dublin. e loves the place but can't get on with the locals. "They don't want to know you if you come and live here. Tourists are OK but not incomers". It was rather sad as it's the first negative thing I think that we've heard anyone say. Our experience has been of the sheer positivity and amazing good humour of the Irish people we have met so far.

Enda at the campsite had been slightly self-critical of his fellow countrymen in that earlier conversation referencing Maslow. He had asked us to make any suggestions for improving the campsite, something he said was unusual for an Irishman to do. Normally, he said, the Dutch are the best at sharing experiences and ideas. They take great delight in helping someone else improve. The English, on the other hand are a little bit reticent and unsure of how the advice, should it be offered, will be taken. When it comes to the Irish though, he says that they would rather see you struggle than pass on a useful bit of advice! They think that self-protection is the correct course of action!

Anyway the fella caught three fish and offered them to me (apparently quite a normal thing to do) but I politely declined as I'm sure they were for his tea or the freezer. We stayed out and went to the pub for our tea.

I think it was a year ago that a helicopter crashed into the sea with significant loss of life to the north west of Ireland and to mark the occasion there was a memorial Mass this week. It was held on top of an accessible mountain on Achill, on which there are the TV and phone relay stations and antennae.

It is possible to drive to the top and walk the last few hundred meters to the summit. What promised to be a super view was blocked by swirling mist. The Mass had been held at the point just behind me in the photograph where there's a statue of "Our Lady" and for some reason there are dozens of small cairns, build from the thousands of rocks that are scattered all over the summit.

I was also totally under-dressed for this small extra-vehicular excursion!

Keel and the rest of Achill almost looks as though it could be in "the far north" with low rise settlements, spread thinly around the beaches.

What we will miss most is our little private campsite next to the lamp (broken and not working thank goodness). We thoroughly recommend a visit to Achill if you are anywhere near the mid / north of the west of Ireland.