The Village of the Dead is all about the living. Slievemore, Achill Island.

Achill Island, Ireland. Such a stunningly beautiful place to experience such profound sadness.
Of all the fraught tales of Ireland, none gets near the collective pain of the Potato Famine, the Great Hunger, several names for one massive tragedy: one million people died, one million left for the US. Done by 1851 for the most part, County Mayo and Achill Island bore heavy scars of those that left forever to survive.

On Achill Island, Slievemore, an abandoned village, speaks of a million stories lost to Time.
It can be as long a walk as you like, and end in some special spots. But the rows of tumbled houses, barely visible in vines and moss, can be hiked around, though a steady foot is needed.
I cried and then realized how many lives were lost, and generations of Irish who succeeded — but never came home.

The brown tourist site signs call it the “Deserted Village”; it sits in the shadow of a massive granite rock that rises thousands of feet above it. With a cemetery next to it, only adds to the eerieness of it all.

Reading this, I know it all sounds doom and gloom; but I learned an invaluable but contradictory lesson. In life there is death, and vice versa. Or as the poet John O’Donohue said in “Born in the dark, we live in the light, but Death always walks beside us.” At that moment, I was supposed to feel pain and joy.

#achillisland #countymayo #Irishtourism