MAYO.MEA guide to the best beaches in Co Mayo, Ireland
All along the winding North Coast Road from Ballycastle to Belderrig Storm Bella came howling down from Greenland walloping the car with fitful splatterings of rain and hail. Approaching Céide, the car was rocking like a ship in a storm, its windscreen wipers batting away noisy pellets of hail the north-westerly was spitting out with […]
An enchanting scene awaited me on a walk around Killala Harbour at dusk. Kayakers paddling in the calm lagoon beneath the world-class architectural heritage of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Killala’s Round Tower; their voices echoing across the stillness of a beautiful August twilight. It was a magical scene of evolving shadows as the kayaks glided […]
A sunny day this summer is as rare as a winter swallow. So a sapphire sky, sprinkled with puffy white clouds, sailing over Ballina, was a call to motor west to the wilds of Ballycroy to once more recharge the batteries along the Claggan Mountain Coastal Trail, a sliver of Mayo blanket bog between mountain […]
The following lines from Shakespeare seem appropriate at this worrying and unprecedented time when self-isolation and entire continents in Lockdown seem our only defence against Coronavirus (COVID-19).
It’s late February and a succession of storms has just swept across the Atlantic from Arctic Canada churning the vast ocean into a raging sea swell and sending gigantic waves thundering into the coast.
A brisk south-westerly lifted the menagerie of cartoon character kites over the crescent of Trawmore strand in Keel.
March brings both the promise of summer and sharp reminders of winter. Icy cold north westerlies, not unexpected here in mid-March, brought snow to the mountain tops ahead of Storm Gareth. And so an unusually mild winter gave way to three days of mad March weather.
There’s nothing so exciting and unpredictable as the natural wonders that surround us. Like the energy and randomness of waves crashing onto the shore.
Standing in the safety of Killerduff, watching the awesome power of Mayo’s Wild Atlantic waves crashing over Downpatrick Head, got me thinking of the terrifying conditions only seafarers witness as they work the high seas to earn a precarious livelihood.
Before setting off for Enniscrone I had to use a spatula to scrape the layers of ice off the car windscreen. It was showing 1 degree Celsius on the car monitor and the road from Ballina was icy and dangerous.
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