Overview
Aughagower (Irish: Achadh Ghobhair, ‘field of the spring’) packs a thousand years of monastic Ireland into a village of about forty houses, 6 km south-east of Westport in County Mayo. In a short walk around the centre you get a leaning round tower from around 1000 AD, a medieval church and graveyard, a holy well, St Patrick’s baptismal vat, and a Sheela na Gig – most of it free, unguided and open to the sky. The village sits within the Joyce Country Geopark, on the old pilgrim road to Croagh Patrick.
If you have only half an hour, spend it at the round tower and the graveyard that surrounds it: that is the reason to stop, and everything else is a short stroll from there.
History and early Christian roots
Aughagower’s church dates to 441 AD, when Saint Patrick is recorded founding a church and bishopric here and appointing Bishop Senach, one of his close followers from Armagh, as its first head. The Book of Armagh notes that bishops were still resident into the early 9th century, which marks it out as a significant centre in the old kingdom of Umhaill around Clew Bay.
The place mattered enough that in 1215 a dispute between the Archbishops of Tuam and Armagh over its lands went all the way to Rome, where Pope Innocent III ruled in favour of Tuam. Later centuries brought the clan wars of the Bourkes and MacPhilbins and the pirate queen Grace O’Malley, who married into the Bourkes. The Famine gutted the parish – from roughly 12,000 people before it to 789 by the 1896 census – and the ruined cottages scattered across the townlands still show it. In the south of the parish, the Carrowkennedy ambush of 2 June 1921 saw an IRA flying column under Michael Kilroy attack an RIC patrol; eight policemen died and the column released its prisoners afterwards.
Ancient monuments and what to see
The village centre works as an open-air heritage site, walkable in a relaxed 45 minutes.
- Round tower – Built between 973 and 1013 AD, standing about 16 m and preserved up to the fourth floor, though it lost its capstone. The original doorway faces east, 2.2 m above the ground; a later doorway at ground level faces north-west. It leans slightly, and was reinforced in 1969. Local tradition says the original capstone, struck by lightning, was carried to the modern Catholic church, where a keystone is on display.
- Medieval church and graveyard – The ruined late-medieval church sits on earlier foundations within the working graveyard. Look for St Patrick’s Knee, a small stone with a carved recess that holds rainwater, said to mark where the saint knelt and to hold a cure.
- Dabhach Phádraig (Patrick’s Vat) – A stone-walled basin where St Patrick is said to have baptised the first Christians of Aughagower. It is dry now except in very wet weather, the drainage having changed. A rare Sheela na Gig, found in a nearby ditch, was set into its eastern wall in 2017.
- Cloughundra (Cloch Andra) – A 150 kg boulder on the village green. Folklore says a giant threw it ‘as far as another man would send a pebble’ and left finger-marks you can still see; visitors test their strength against it.
- Leaba Phádraig (Patrick’s Bed) – Marked by a lone tree west of the tower, said to be where Patrick rested, and traditionally the start of the pilgrim stations.
- Further afield – The Lankill Standing Stone, a 2.5 m spike of shale possibly of Bronze Age origin, carries a cross on its west face and a Latin cross in a double circle on the east, about 2.7 km to the west-south-west. Leacht Tomaltaigh, on the Gorteen boundary, is thought to mark the grave of Totmael, one of Patrick’s charioteers; it now stands about 0.75 m, down from an original 2 m.
Walking the pilgrim’s route
Aughagower is the halfway point on Tóchar Phádraig, the roughly 35 km pilgrim road from Ballintubber Abbey to the summit of Croagh Patrick. The route is older than the pilgrimage that made it famous – originally a chariot road out of Cruachan – and the village green is a natural rest stop for walkers before the climb of the Reek.
Getting here and practical information
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Access | Via the N59 (Clifden–Westport), with a sign on the right coming from Clifden, or the R330 (Partry–Westport), with the Aughagower sign on the left approaching from Westport. |
| Public transport | Limited; the nearest regular buses are in Westport. Bring your own transport or cycle. |
| Opening hours | Year-round, unguided. Accessible during daylight hours. |
| Admission | Free |
| Parking | Free on-site parking beside the round tower and green – though the signage to it is easy to miss, so slow down as you reach the village. |
| Accessibility | Ground-level access to the church ruins and monuments. The round tower interior has narrow stone stairs and is not suitable for wheelchairs or unsupervised young children. |
| Best time to visit | Spring and autumn for mild walking; summer brings more pilgrims heading for Croagh Patrick. |
Nearby attractions
- Westport – A coastal town 6 km away, with Georgian streets, a harbour and independent cafés.
- Westport House – An 18th-century estate with formal and walled gardens.
- Ballycroy National Park – Blanket bog, heather mountains and Atlantic coast, about 20 minutes north-west.
- Clew Bay – A drumlin-strewn bay off the R330, good for coastal drives and island-hopping.
Allow an hour for Aughagower itself, then run the R330 north to Westport for lunch – but slow down on the way in, because the turn for the car park is the one thing here that is genuinely hard to spot.