Keem Bay

Where it sits. Keem is a horseshoe of white sand at the extreme western end of Achill Island, closed on the north by the mass of Croaghaun and on the south by Moyteoge Head, with the mouth facing west into the Atlantic. The approach is the point: a narrow road climbs from Dooagh in a series of ledges cut into the flank of the hill, unfenced on the seaward side, and turns a corner to reveal the whole bay several hundred feet below. The sand is fine and pale, the water over it turns an implausible turquoise in sunshine because of the depth and the pale bottom, and the enclosing headlands cut the swell so that Keem is usually calm when the coast either side is not.

The story behind it. For nearly thirty years this was an industrial site. Basking sharks feed on plankton concentrated by the currents around Achill Head, and from 1947 until the mid-1970s a fishery worked out of Keem, setting nets across the mouth of the bay and killing sharks for their liver oil, which was used in lamps, machinery and later cosmetics. In the best seasons well over a thousand animals were taken in a single year, processed at Purteen Harbour a few kilometres east; the trade collapsed when the stock did. The stone lookout on Moyteoge Head, built as a coastguard and signal station and later used as a war-time observation post, doubled as the shark watch — a spotter up there could see the fins coming and signal the boats. Amethyst occurs in the quartz veins in the cliffs behind the beach, and small-scale collecting has gone on here for two centuries; Corrymore House, on the road in, was Charles Boycott's farm before he moved to Lough Mask.

On screen. Keem carries the emotional weight of The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Colm Doherty's cottage, the house from which he cuts himself off and where the fiddle music comes from, was built as a set on the slope above the bay, facing out to sea; Brendan Gleeson's scenes at the door and on the wall behind it were shot there. The beach below appears repeatedly, and the film ends on this sand, with the two men standing apart and the water behind them. Martin McDonagh's production divided its fictional island between Achill and Inishmore, and Keem is the piece most people picture afterwards. The set was dismantled after filming, so there is nothing built to look at — but the ground, the angle of the slope and the exact line of the horizon are unchanged, and the walk up to where the cottage stood takes about ten minutes from the car park.

What you actually see today. A car park sits just above the beach with a short concrete ramp down to the sand; a seasonal lifeguard covers the bay in July and August, and Keem has held Blue Flag status for years. Grey seals use the bay, dolphins pass the mouth, and basking sharks return in early summer, sometimes close enough to the shore to be seen from the sand — they are harmless plankton feeders, and swimming near them is discouraged only because a tail the size of a door does real damage by accident. From the car park a steep grass path climbs south to the lookout tower on Moyteoge Head, twenty minutes for the view straight down into the bay, and a much longer and more serious ridge walk continues north over Benmore to the summit of Croaghaun and the cliffs on its far side.

Getting there and timing. Keem is about twelve kilometres west of Keel by the R319 and the Keem road, roughly twenty minutes' drive, and there is no other way in by land. The car park is small and fills by mid-morning in July and August; on the busiest summer days Mayo County Council has managed access with a shuttle and traffic marshals, and arriving before ten or after five avoids the problem entirely. The road is single-track with passing places, steep, and unpleasant in fog or high wind; it is not a route to take a large campervan up. The beach itself is level and reachable from the car park, but the cliff paths above it are unsurfaced, exposed and steep. Late September gives warm water, low light along the northern headland, and the bay largely to whoever is standing on it.