The brother, God rest him, lived in Newport, Co Mayo for many years, and
as a teenager I would visit him during the holidays. Way back then, in the
far off distant days of the 1960s, the journey from Co Down to Connacht
in my Dad’s ancient Austin A40 took some 12 hours. If you’re lucky you can
still do it in something like that nowadays — although watch out for the
traffic at Castlebar.
Only joking, of course. Roads and vehicles are vastly
superior now, and the journey nowadays, although by no means straightforward,
can border on the enjoyable. But the traffic is definitely worse, no doubt
about that. Before setting out on my latest odyssey to Mayo I peeked into
the family album, and the one truly striking thing about the photos of that
time is the astonishing lack of vehicles in the towns. The streets are virtually
empty. Traffic considerations aside, I’m delighted to report that not too
many other things seem to have changed substantially in Mayo. I decided
to make my base camp at Westport before journeying on up the coast towards
Belmullet, and was very glad I did. Certainly there are more foreign tourists
in town, but there’s still that relaxed, almost hapless air about the place.
It was good to be back.
Situated at the southerly corner of Clew Bay, Westport looks out onto
the Atlantic straight across to America. Or nearly does. You can’t actually
see much of the main Ocean because the bay is littered with a vast number
of almost impossibly beautiful, green-topped islands, almost clichés of
the form. WM Thackeray described the scene: "The islands in the bay, which
was of a gold colour, look like so many dolphins and whales basking there."
There are some 435 islands in total — or as a local put it to me: "One for
each day of the year, with, er, a few left over."
Now in describing the sea as "azure" I use the term imaginatively, in
the same way that Thackeray, presumably, used the word gold. Because as
you will be aware, clouds are not unknown in this neck of the woods. True,
there was a tentative smudge of sun as I walked up Toberbrendan for a better
view of the magnificent surroundings, but the squelchy ground underfoot
suggested that this was something of a rare event.
The scenery is breathtaking and the town itself is a handsome place,
still recognisably Georgian, and with a distinctly cosmopolitan air. There
is a theory that a French architect, who arrived with General Humbert in
1798, designed the town giving it its je ne sais quoi, if you’ll pardon
my French. With scenery as dramatic as that which surrounds Westport, the
town is of course firmly on the tourist trail.
Throw in a good legend as well, and the place is irresistible. Much is
therefore made of the area’s connection with the ‘pirate queen’ Gráinne
Ni Mhaille or Gráinne Uaile, aka Grace O’Malley. Her headquarters were a
castle where Westport House now stands — and even without the accompanying
legends this is an elegant mansion worth a visit, although not a cheap day
out. For a further overview of the area you could also swing by the Clew
Bay Heritage Centre on The Quay. Here you’ll find a higgledy-piggledy collection
of artefacts — including flachters and scraws for turf-cutting, coins, ancient
postcards, stamps and documents. In fact, with the exception of the afore
mentioned flachters and scraws, more or less the contents of your office
drawer.
Engaging though these places are, the glory of Westport is its setting
among the finest scenery you’ll find anywhere in the world. A few miles
up the coast are idyllic villages such as Mulrany, a little further inland
there are mountains, lakes and rivers teeming with trout and salmon. Mayo
really does have everything: Knock shrine and Croagh Patrick for contemplation,
The Quiet Man industry at Cong for film buffs, and of course Clew Bay itself,
with the formidable crags of the Nephin Beg range nudging the Atlantic.
Nowhere in Ireland resonates with more unchanging tradition than here
in the West. Farmers are tilling the same fields that generations of Connacht
farmers have tilled before them. The Mayo landscape can be melancholy —
desolate even — here at the very edge of Europe. But it’s a place everyone
should visit at least once, and nowhere better to have as your base than
the ancient, elegant town of Westport.
