Trawmore Strand at Keel on Achill Island |
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Trawmore Strand is a fine sandy beach with low sand dunes about 4km in length. It connects the village of Keel with Dookinelly and offers fantastic views of the famous Minuan Cliffs at the eastern end of the strand. To the southeast of the plain the ground rises sharply and the hills are covered by blanket bog and heath. To the back of the sandy beach is a storm beach formed from boulders and shingle thrown onshore during storms. This barrier of rocks separates the beach from the low lying area of flat ground behind Trawmore Strand, which includes the area occupied by Achill Golf Club. This area has the status of 'machair', a habitat designated as an area of special scientific interest and which is confined to the west coast of Ireland from Galway to Donegal (the only other examples of machair in Europe are in Scotland). The wetter areas of machair supports low growing mosses. The Slievemore Road winds past the cubistic cuttings of a farmed peat bog flecked with white tufts of the wildflower named bog cotton and crosses the valley leading down to Trawmore Strand. The resort village of Keel stretches around this curved beach, surveying the Atlantic and the sheer face of the Minaun Cliffs. At Keel, the island's main east-west route heads out to the westernmost settlement, Dooagh, and beyond to the dramatic precipice of Achill Head arching high above Keem Bay. Along this road, turnouts afford panoramas that extend from Keel to Minaun, Dooega Head, Clare Island, the islands off Connemara and the Atlantic horizon. |
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