Overview
Slievemore Old Cemetery lies at the foot of Slievemore Mountain on Achill Island – at the base of the slope, not up on it, whatever some listings say. It’s a windswept, informal burial ground rather than a neat walled graveyard, and it’s honest to say the cemetery itself is a short visit. The reason it’s worth the pull-in is what surrounds it: open Atlantic views across the island’s fields, and the direct start of the walk into the Deserted Village of Slievemore just across the way.
The gravestones
The earliest legible headstone here dates to 1842 – Mary Barrett, who died that November – which means the ground was in use before the Great Famine, through it, and long after. That matters, because it’s easy to read a place like this as purely a famine story, and it isn’t. The markers are mostly plain weathered slabs, a few carrying Celtic crosses and Gaelic inscriptions, and together they read as a roll-call of Achill’s farming and fishing families.
Look closely and the emigration shows through: stones erected by relatives in Cleveland, Ohio and San Francisco, sent home to mark parents and grandparents they’d left behind. This is the Old Graveyard proper; across the road is Slievemore Main Cemetery, with over 700 legible headstones spanning 1884 to 2012, and the New Cemetery alongside dates from 1937.
The Deserted Village next door
The cemetery runs straight into the Deserted Village of Slievemore, 80 to 100 dry-stone cottages strung for close to a mile along the southern slope. This was one of the last places in Europe to practise booleying – transhumance – where families from villages like Dugort and Pollagh moved up to these hillside cottages each summer to graze cattle, then went back down for winter. When the blight hit in the 1840s many left for good through rent arrears, disease or emigration; a stubborn few held on into the early 20th century, using the cottages as seasonal shepherds’ shelters.
Lazy-bed potato ridges still ripple beneath the grass around the ruins. In summer the Achill Archaeological Field School runs surveys and excavations here, and you may see students recording the landscape – the wider site’s history stretches back to megalithic tombs thousands of years older than the cottages.
Visiting
There’s no gate and no ticket booth, just a pull-over and a short walk. A few honest notes:
- Parking: a decent car park sits just off the R319 between Keel and Dugort, signposted for both the cemetery and the Deserted Village.
- Terrain: uneven, stony, slippery after rain and boggy in patches. Sturdy boots are essential; it’s not suitable for wheelchairs or buggies.
- Bring your own: no facilities on site, and little shade – carry water, a snack and layers, and sun cover in summer.
- Respect it: this is an active place of remembrance. Keep noise down, stay off the headstones and cottage walls, and keep dogs on a short lead.
Nearby
The two obvious add-ons are Dugort’s Blue Flag beaches: Silver Strand at the very foot of Slievemore, and Golden Strand a little further east – either is a good place to end up after an hour among the ruins. Give the cemetery and village 45 minutes to an hour together, then let the beach be the reward.