North Mayo from Ballina: the coast, the cliffs and 6,000 years of history

Ballina is a base, not a destination you exhaust in an afternoon. The town does its own thing well enough, but the real reason to stay a few nights is what sits within half an hour of it. North Mayo has some of the wildest coast on the western seaboard and one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe, and from Ballina you can reach the lot by car without a long day on the road. A few of these trips technically cross into County Sligo, but locally nobody minds; the coast does not check your county boundary.

Downpatrick Head and Dún Briste

This is the one to do first. Downpatrick Head sits about six kilometres north of the village of Ballycastle, and the drive from Ballina is roughly half an hour along the coast. The headland itself is grassy and flat, then it just stops at a cliff edge, and standing offshore is Dún Briste, a sea stack about 45 metres high that was once joined to the mainland. The name means broken fort, and there is a story, repeated locally for generations, that a section of cliff collapsed and left people stranded on the new stack. Whatever the truth of it, the sight is genuinely arresting: a flat-topped tower of layered rock standing alone in the Atlantic with the swell breaking around its base.

Mind yourself here. The cliffs are unfenced in places and the wind off the sea is no joke. There is also a blowhole on the headland, Poll na Seantine, where you can hear the sea surging below ground. Wear proper shoes and keep children and dogs close to you.

The Céide Fields

Further west along the same coast road, about eight kilometres beyond Ballycastle on the R314, are the Céide Fields. Under the blanket bog here lies a Stone Age landscape of stone-walled fields, dwellings and tombs that is around 6,000 years old, the most extensive Neolithic field system known anywhere. It is older than the Pyramids and older than Newgrange, and the scale of it is hard to take in until someone explains how the walls run for kilometres under the peat.

The award-winning visitor centre is the thing that makes the site readable; on bare bog it would just look like bog. It is generally open daily from early March to early November, with a small admission charge (around €5 for an adult when last checked, with family and concession rates), and there is free entry on the first Wednesday of each month. Check current hours and prices before you drive out, especially in shoulder season, and allow a couple of hours. Pair it with Downpatrick Head and you have a full, satisfying day on the coast.

Enniscrone and Easkey

If the weather turns soft, or you just want a beach and a soak rather than cliffs, head the other way. Enniscrone (you will also see it spelled Inishcrone) is about fifteen minutes from Ballina across the Sligo border, and its strand is a long Blue Flag beach, several kilometres of firm sand backed by dunes, lifeguarded in summer. It is good for a walk in any weather and good for a swim or a surf lesson in the right one.

The other reason to come is Kilcullen's Seaweed Baths, an Edwardian bathhouse in the village that has been running for over a century and is one of the last traditional seaweed bath houses in Ireland. A private hot seawater bath with fresh Atlantic seaweed is exactly the right thing after a cold day on the cliffs or the river. Booking ahead is wise, particularly at weekends. A few kilometres further along the coast, the small village of Easkey is a well-known surf spot with a couple of honest old pubs; it makes an easy add-on if you are already out that way.

Closer to home

You do not have to leave Ballina to get a good walk. Belleek Woods, on the edge of town, wraps several miles of trail along the Moy around Belleek Castle, and it is one of the largest urban woodlands in Europe. It is a fine fallback on a wet morning, or a way to fill an hour before a restaurant opens. Foxford, about fifteen minutes south, has the Foxford Woollen Mills if you want a different kind of afternoon.

Planning the days

A car makes all of this far easier; public transport into the North Mayo coast is thin, though there are bus services along the coast toward Enniscrone and Easkey. Build the day around the weather rather than a fixed plan: cliffs and the Céide Fields on a clear day, the seaweed baths and the woods when it closes in. Fill the tank before you head out the coast road, carry a waterproof whatever the forecast says, and do not expect a string of cafés on the headlands. North Mayo is gloriously empty, which is the whole point, so bring what you need with you.