It is also the site of the rare and fertile coastal plain habitat known as ‘machair’, only found along the Atlantic coasts of N.W. Scotland and W. Ireland. Along with many offshore islands, Achill has suffered huge migration since the late 19th century and the population today is half what it was at the turn of the 20th century.

Many of those migrants went to America and men from Achill played a key role in the building of the famous ‘Erie Canal’. Today around 30,000 people in the city of Clevland, Ohio claim Achill descent.

This book contains just under 50 photographs of Achill in its more populous past and tells the story of the island from its early Neolithic settlements, through the famines of the 19th century to the good times of the early 20th when it was a retreat for such famous folk as the writer Graham Greene and the painter Paul Henry.