Mullet Peninsula

The Mullet hangs off north-west Mayo as a thin strip of land almost thirty kilometres long, joined to the mainland by a neck at Belmullet so narrow that a canal was cut through it. It is low, flat and almost entirely without trees - the wind off the Atlantic prevents them - and much of it is Gaeltacht. Between the exposed western shore and the sheltered Blacksod Bay side lies machair, a rare coastal grassland that forms on shell sand and supports large numbers of wildflowers and ground-nesting birds; corncrakes still breed here. Beaches run along both coasts, most of them empty even in August, and the Inishkea islands lie offshore, abandoned in 1934 after a drowning disaster and now grazed and full of seals and barnacle geese. Blacksod lighthouse at the southern tip provided the weather reading that delayed the D-Day landings by a day in 1944.

What you actually see

• The machair - rare shell-sand grassland with wildflowers and corncrakes.
• The empty beaches - on both the Atlantic and Blacksod Bay coasts.
• The Inishkea islands - abandoned in 1934, now seals and barnacle geese.
• Blacksod lighthouse - source of the 1944 D-Day weather report.

When to go

May to September; corncrakes call from late May, and the machair flowers in June and July. Wind is constant and there is no shelter anywhere on the peninsula.

Honest expectations

No lifeguards on the beaches and strong Atlantic currents. Machair is fragile and ground-nesting birds are easily disturbed - keep to tracks and dogs on leads. Very limited services outside Belmullet.

Nearby

Belmullet is at the neck; Erris Head is north and Achill south across the bay.