Qualla: Strandhill

Strandhill: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Niallio77, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk down Shore Road in Strandhill on any morning with surf in it and you'll see them: wetsuits half-zipped, boards under arms, the same expressions surfers wear in Cornwall or California, here at the western base of Knocknarea where the Atlantic comes in hard and unbroken. The signs at the beach tell you not to swim. They don't quite say why - the tourist boards prefer not to mention the sewage outfall - so they emphasise the currents instead, which are also real. Strandhill is a village whose name is exactly true: a great expanse of strand in front, a steep hill behind, and a population of about 2,000 perched between them. There used to be another village here. The sand swallowed it.

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Image: Niallio77 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Strandhill: The Deserted Village

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:FoekeNoppert, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before Strandhill was a place, an older settlement stood near where Sligo Airport now sits. The shifting sands of the peninsula gradually buried it - dune over wall, marram grass over hearth - and its residents fled up the slopes of Knocknarea. The famine of the 1840s killed most...

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Image: User:FoekeNoppert | CC BY-SA 3.0

Strandhill: Buenos Ayres Drive

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Niallio77, CC BY-SA 3.0. The modern village owes its existence to a Victorian developer named Benjamin Murrow. In 1895 he bought the undeveloped land from the upper road for £1,760, spent another £1,000 cutting a road down to the sea, and offered plots either side. He called his new street Buenos Ayres D...

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Image: Niallio77 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Strandhill: Knocknarea Above

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951), Public domain. Knocknarea rises straight up behind the village - 327 metres of flat-topped limestone, capped by the cairn locals call Miosgán Médhbh: Queen Maeve's grave. The cairn is believed to date from around 3000 BC, twice the diameter of Listoghil at nearby Carrowmore, and folklore insist...

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Image: Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951) | Public domain

Strandhill: The Crossing to Coney Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. At low tide, a road appears across Cummeen Strand from the mainland to Coney Island. The sand is firm enough to drive a car across, though you'll pick up enough salt to regret it later. Fourteen sturdy guide markers line the route, each aligned with the Black Rock lighthouse to k...

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Image: Oliver Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

Strandhill: Surfing, Seaweed, and the Warriors' Run

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Parry, CC BY-SA 2.0. The west-facing beach gets the swell that has crossed three thousand kilometres of open Atlantic, and on the right days it produces serious waves. Two surf schools operate from the strand. The 18-hole golf course backs the dunes with what local writers call "undulating fairways a...

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Image: Michael Parry | CC BY-SA 2.0