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ARKLOW |
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If the poetry and passion of Van Morrison's Streets of Arklow have
brought you here, you may well be disappointed. While it's an ideal
point from which to access the intensely pretty Vale of Avoca, the town
itself is chiefly a commercial centre wrapped around an old port. ARKLOW
has a long and prosperous history based on fishing, shipbuilding and the
export of copper ore, pyrites and even gold, mined further up the valley.
While no longer a major port, shipbuilding continues to be important -
Gypsy Moth IV , Sir Francis Chichester's prize-winning transatlantic
yacht now moored at London's Greenwich, was built at John Tyrrell's yard
here. For a grip on the past, stop off at the Maritime Museum in St
Mary's Road (summer Mon-Sat 10am-5pm; £1/¬1.27). A delightfully
haphazard collection of local finds, it claims a history for Arklow
going back to Ptolemy's celebrated second-century map. It also emerges
that Arklow was a major centre for arms-smuggling during the upheavals
of 1798. The museum houses such curiosities as a whale's tooth and
eardrum and a model ship made with 10,700 matchsticks.
Arklow's beach , white sand like the rest of this part of the coast, is
sandwiched between the docks and a gravel extraction plant - you may
prefer to head north to Brittas Bay, or, if you have transport, five
miles south to the sheltered sandy Clogga Beach .
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