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DUGORT |
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While DUGORT , a clutch of houses nestling at the base of Slievemore
mountain, lacks the arresting open views of the Atlantic on offer at
Keel or Dooagh, it does make a more comfortable base, both in terms of
accommodation and atmosphere. Follow the signs for the Deserted Village
from Keel, and take the Atlantic Drive for Dugort. Half a mile out of
Keel, a signposted footpath leads to a mini megalithic tomb set in the
hillside where the gorse meets the heather - well worth the climb, if
only for the view. A couple of miles further on, some ruined buildings
and scattered gravestones are all that's left of a village known simply
as The Settlement . It was founded in 1834 by a Protestant vicar, the
Reverend E. Nangle, who bought up sixty percent of the island and built
schools and a printing press in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to
evangelize the islanders. Towering to the north is Slievemore , Achill's
highest mountain at 2205ft - a massive pile of quartzite and mica. Here
on its southern slopes stands a dolmen with a stone circle at each end
and a booley village of huts formerly used during summer pasturing - a
reminder of a much newer, but equally extinct, transhumant way of life.
At the foot of Slievemore, on the seaward side, are the Seal Caves ,
burrowing way back under the mountain; you can visit them by boat from
the tiny pier at Dugort.
To get away from the seaside holiday atmosphere that often overtakes
Dooagh and Keel (especially on bank holiday weekends), you can stay on
the southern slopes of the mountain at McDowell's Hotel (closed Oct-March;
tel 098/43148; £40-55/¬50.79-69.84), which does excellent food,
including vegetarian, and has frequent traditional music sessions, while
in Dugort itself you can stay in comfort at Gray's Guesthouse (tel
098/43244; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79) a rambling establishment comprised of
several houses, taking up one street of the tiny hamlet. Five miles east,
and signposted from all the main roads, is the Valley House Hostel (closed
Dec-March; tel 098/47204), a handsome, crumbling edifice that was once
home to the woman whose story is told in J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the
Western World - her rejected suitor burned down a barn and tossed her
onto the flames. The place now operates as a hostel with four-bed rooms
and the luxury of a bar in the courtyard behind the house. Dugort has
two campsites : the Seal Caves Caravan and Camping Park (closed Oct-March;
tel 098/43262) and Lavele's Golden Strand Caravan and Camping Park (closed
Oct-March; tel 098/47232).
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