Qualla: Clew Bay

Clew Bay: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brendanconway, Public domain. Local tradition holds that Clew Bay has 365 islands, an island for every day of the year. The real number is 141 named islands and islets, plus an uncounted host of unnamed rocks and sandbars. Either count understates what the bay actually looks like from above. The eastern half is so densely packed with small green humps in a blue sea that it looks like spilled marbles. These are drumlins, the smooth elongated mounds left behind when the last glaciers retreated from Ireland about ten thousand years ago. The sea then rose, drowned the lowlands, and left only the tops of the drumlins above water. Nowhere else on Earth does this happen at the same scale. Ireland's best example of a sunken drumlin landscape sits here, off the coast of County Mayo, with Croagh Patrick standing 764 metres tall to the south and the Nephin Beg range rolling away to the north.

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Image: Brendanconway | Public domain

Clew Bay: The Pirate Queen's Sea

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ire2500, Public domain. Before Clew Bay was Clew Bay, it was Cuan Umhaill, the harbour of the territory of Umhaill, ruled by the Uí Máille family, the O'Malleys. Their last and most famous chieftain was Grace O'Malley, Gráinne Ní Mháille, born around 1530. The English called her the Pirate Queen, which ...

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Image: Ire2500 | Public domain

Clew Bay: Drumlins Drowned

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul McIlroy, CC BY-SA 2.0. About 18,000 years ago, the last of the Irish ice sheets retreated north across what is now County Mayo. The glaciers left behind hundreds of drumlins, smooth oval mounds of compacted till, all aligned in the direction the ice had been flowing. As the climate warmed, the sea leve...

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Image: Paul McIlroy | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clew Bay: What Lies Beneath

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. In 2024, archaeologists from Mayo County Council and a team based in Connemara announced the discovery of a submerged late Bronze Age fort in Clew Bay. It had been sitting underwater for some three thousand years, since before sea levels in this part of Ireland settled into their...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Clew Bay: Lennon's Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Edge, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1967, John Lennon bought a small uninhabited drumlin island in Clew Bay called Dorinish. He paid about £1,700 for it, sailed out from Westport to plant a flag, and briefly entertained the idea of building a home there. He never did. Instead he invited a group of hippies in 196...

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Image: Steve Edge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clew Bay: The Bay Today

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Evertype, CC BY 2.5. The settlements ring the bay like beads on a string: Louisburgh in the southwest, then Lecanvey, Murrisk where the trail up Croagh Patrick begins, and Westport at the southeast corner. North of Westport is Newport, and further west sits Mulranny, the gateway to Achill Island, whi...

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Image: Evertype | CC BY 2.5