Qualla: Corraun Peninsula

Corraun Peninsula: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boholaman at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Stand on the Corraun Peninsula and Achill Island looks impossibly close - a stone's throw across a narrow sound, connected to the mainland by a low bridge named for Michael Davitt, the nineteenth-century Land Leaguer who was born nearby. Achill gets all the attention; tourists pour west across the bridge to its cliffs and beaches without slowing down. But Corraun is its own place, a 524-metre hill rising out of a peninsula in the Gaeltacht, with views north across Blacksod Bay and south to Croagh Patrick and the islands of Clew Bay. The Great Western Greenway runs through it. About 726 people live here. Roughly one in eight of them speaks Irish every day.

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Image: Boholaman at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Corraun Peninsula: Reaching Toward Achill

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hootsmac, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Corraun Peninsula - sometimes spelt Currane - juts west from the County Mayo mainland toward Achill Island, the two landmasses separated by the narrow channel of Achill Sound. The Michael Davitt Bridge, completed in 1949 and rebuilt in 2008, carries the road across the sound ...

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Image: Hootsmac | CC BY-SA 4.0

Corraun Peninsula: The Hill

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michelle Owner of the Squishy from Denver, CC BY 2.0. Corraun Hill rises to 524 metres at the peninsula's centre - a flat-topped sandstone summit that catches whatever weather is moving in off the Atlantic. From the top, the view sweeps north across Blacksod Bay to the Mullet Peninsula and the distant Stags of Broadhaven; west acros...

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Image: Michelle Owner of the Squishy from Denver | CC BY 2.0

Corraun Peninsula: The Greenway

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laurel Lodged, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Great Western Greenway, a 42-kilometre walking and cycling route built on a disused railway line between Westport and Achill, passes through the northern side of Corraun. It is the longest off-road walking and cycling trail in Ireland, and the stretch across the peninsula is ...

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Image: Laurel Lodged | CC BY-SA 4.0

Corraun Peninsula: Gaeltacht and Football

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laurel Lodged, CC BY-SA 4.0. All of Corraun lies within the official Gaeltacht, the area where the Irish language is recognised as the community language. Census figures show that about twelve per cent of the population speaks Irish daily outside the education system - a figure that places Corraun within the...

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Image: Laurel Lodged | CC BY-SA 4.0