Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

The West is Best in Lonely Planet’s List of Top Irish Beaches

11th April 2021
Keem Beach is one of two beauty spots on Achill Island alone to make the cut Keem Beach is one of two beauty spots on Achill Island alone to make the cut Credit: Sergio/Wikimedia

The Wild Atlantic Way is a winner when it comes to Lonely Planet’s new list of the 10 best beaches in Ireland.

All but two of travel writer Fionn Davenport’s selections can be found along the breathtaking coastline from Kerry to Donegal.

And the North West especially comes out tops, taking up half the list with renowned beauty spots such as Keem Beach and Trawmore Bay on Achill Island on Co Mayo, Streedagh Strand in Co Sligo, and Trá Mór and Ballymastocker Bay in Co Donegal.

Only two beaches bust the trend. Ballyquin Beach in Co Waterford holds up for the South Coast, and Killiney Beach on Dublin Bay is the only representative for the East Coast.

Find out more about the list on the Lonely Planet website HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes
MacDara Conroy

About The Author

MacDara Conroy

Email The Author

MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven't put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full-time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.