A few photos from Downpatrick Head, north Co. Mayo, not far from where we were camping in Easky, Co. Sligo. As the name suggests, the location has links to St Patrick. We had very gloomy weather for our visit but it didn’t spoil the magnificent views.
The Poll Na Seantainne blow hole.
Statue of St Patrick in the ruins of an old church.
Odd patterns on the headland.
The Dun Briste sea stack on the right, and an old World War II lookout post on the headland on the left.
The Dun Briste sea stack was the main reason for our visit.
The layered cliffs.
The small figures on the headland, looking out to Dun Briste, give a sense of scale of the cliffs and the sea stack.
The large letters spelling out “EIRE” to let bombers during World War II know that they were over neutral Ireland. These can be found in several locations around the coast. Recently released documents have revealed that Ireland wasn’t as neutral as it claimed, with some of these locations including coded numbers, the meaning of which was only given to the Allied forces, allowing them to establish their location.
I had given up on getting good light for a photo of Dun Briste, and was almost back at the car when I noticed the sun breaking through and lighting up a small patch on the ocean. As it moved towards the sea stack I ran back up the headland, and just had time to get set up to capture the light striking it.
A last shot of the stormy skies before leaving.
aidymcglynn 
gorgeous shots. Very interesting spot!!
Thanks Cybele. Definitely a place to go back to in good weather!
Spectacular location and brilliant photographs. The horizontal layers in the sea stack and cliffs look like those at the Cliffs of Moher, don’t they? I wonder if they are the same Carboniferous Period in date with the multi-coloured nature of the strata reflecting alternating deposits of sandstone, mudstone, and limestone?
Thanks Jessica. The only information I could find seems to suggest that while the Cliffs of Moher were Upper Carboniferous, Dun Briste was formed during the Lower Carboniferous, so maybe a difference in a few tens of millions of years? Definitely seems like similar rock types.