Search Results for 'Achill Island'

Everyone knows the wonderful setting of Achill Island with its stunning beaches and mountainous views, but now there are more reasons to visit Ireland’s largest island. The Achill Experience features Mayo’s first aquarium, including local indigenous species that can be found in the waters off Achill island, like the spotted cat shark. There are two themed salt water tanks and an open touch tank that allows the visitor to fully engage with the local sea life.

Wa Cafe is bijou and bright, a 15 seat sushi restaurant tucked away down by the docks that was opened by Yoshimi Hayakawa on 8/8/2008. This date is no coincidence, the number eight is considered a very lucky number in Japanese culture. It was indeed lucky for us. At Wa the rice is soft, sticky, and delicious, and the food is authentically Japanese, from sushi rolls, miso soup, and bento boxes to green teas. The menu is short with a rotating choice of specials ensuring there is always something new, with a good choice for vegetarians.

THE TOWN Hall bar might be an unlikely venue for viewing fine art but under Margaret Nolan’s canny stewardship it has hosted a succession of superb shows. Next week sees the opening of the venue’s latest exhibition, a series of Achill landscapes by ex-computer boffin, ex-accountancy student, ex-clothing retailer, and ex-rock musician, Padraig McCaul, a Dubliner who has made his home on the Mayo island.

The Great Famine of 1845-51 was, the Galway historian Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh tells us*, ‘a subsistence crisis, and a social calamity without parallel in the 19th century. It resulted in more than 1,000,000 dying of starvation and related diseases; and it ‘precipitated a virtual tidal wave of emigration that would see 4,000,000 flee the country during the following 20 years’. 

Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring, this week announced that €340k in funding has been approved through Fáilte Ireland’s Capital Investment Programme for two tourism projects in  Mayo.

An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, will travel to Moate on October 18 to officially open the new Athlone to Mullingar Greenway.

Volunteers at Achill Island RNLI joined in the celebrations as long serving crew member Alan Gielty wed wife Maeve Clancy last weekend. The crew kitted out in full lifeboat gear outside St Kevin’s Church in Wicklow to give Alan who has been on the lifeboat crew for 15 years, and his new wife Maeve, a special guard of honour.