Westport, Cathair na Mart, Co. Mayo

Cathair na Mart · Co. Mayo

A planned Georgian town under a holy mountain. Yes, those go together.

Westport is the rare Irish town that was drawn before it was built. James Wyatt set out the Mall along the Carrowbeg river in 1780, put stone bridges across at regular intervals, dropped an octagon in the middle, and let the Browne family pay for it from their seat at Westport House. Two and a half centuries later you can still walk the plan in fifteen minutes and feel how thought-through the whole thing is.

What you need to know: it does several jobs at once. It's a market town for South Mayo, a base camp for Croagh Patrick pilgrims, the trailhead for the Great Western Greenway out to Achill, and a working pharma town - AbbVie employs more than a thousand people up the road. The pubs absorb all of that. On any given Saturday night Matt Molloy's will have a fluter from the Chieftains, two American couples mid-greenway, three lads in high-vis off shift, and a pilgrim still in the boots she climbed in.

Don't try to do it as a day-trip. The town runs on its evenings. Climb the Reek if the cloud lifts, ride the greenway as far as Newport for lunch, eat a proper dinner at An Port Mór, and roll into a session that's been going since you were drying your boots. Stay two nights and you'll start to understand why the Brownes never sold up.

Population

6,872

Pubs

25and counting

Walk score

The Mall to the Octagon in five minutes

Founded

1780 (planned town, James Wyatt)

Coords

53.8000° N, 9.5333° W

01 / 09

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The Reek

Croagh Patrick, ten kilometres west.

764 metres of quartzite scree above Clew Bay. A pilgrim path since long before Patrick - and on the last Sunday in July, thousands climb it, some of them barefoot. The view earns the calves.

Walks & outings → 02 The Greenway

42km of old railway to Achill.

Ireland's first proper greenway - the Midland Great Western branch line, lifted in 1937, paved as a cycleway in 2011. Westport to Achill Sound, traffic-free. Hire a bike at the train station and ride out for a day.

Stories & lore → 03 The town

A Georgian plan that actually works.

James Wyatt drew the Mall along the Carrowbeg river in 1780, with stone bridges and the Octagon at the centre. Tidy Towns winners three times. The Irish Times called it the best place to live in the country in 2012.

Stories & lore →

02 / 09

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Matt Molloy's

Famous, deserved

Pub & trad sessions

Owned by Matt Molloy, flautist of the Chieftains since 1979. Sessions in the back room nightly, year-round. It is on every guidebook and it is still good - the trick is to get there before half nine and stay until the tour buses give up.

McCarthy's

Local, no fuss

Pub on Quay Road

Down towards the Quay, away from the Bridge Street crush. The kind of place where a pint takes its own time and the conversation is mostly about the weather and who's bought what field.

J.J. O'Malley's

Music & dinner

Pub & food, Bridge Street

Three-storey old building with a turf fire, a kitchen that does proper pub food until late, and live music most nights upstairs. A solid plan B if Molloy's is wedged.

The Towers

Sea air, sunsets

Bar at Westport Quay

Out by the harbour at the end of the Mall - built into the old warehouse stone. Watch the light go down over Clew Bay with a pint. The food is better than it has any right to be.

Hoban's

Quiet pint

Pub on James Street

Small, dark, untouched. The pub for when you want to read the paper and not be talked at. Closes earlier than the others. Worth knowing.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
An Port Mór	Restaurant, Brewery Place	€€€	Chef Frankie Mallon's place down a little laneway off Bridge Street. Mayo lamb, Clew Bay seafood, a wine list that knows what it's doing. Book a week ahead in summer, two days ahead off-season.
The Pantry & Corkscrew	Bistro, The Octagon	€€	On the Octagon itself. Small, tight menu, Irish producers named on the page. The Tuesday early-bird is one of the better deals in Mayo.
Sage	Restaurant, High Street	€€	Eva and Shteryo Yurukov's place - vegetable-led, ingredients-first, no tasting-menu theatre. The kind of dinner you eat in a normal-sized portion and feel better for.
Cian Ennis Butchers	Butcher & deli, Bridge Street	€	Not a restaurant. The butcher. Pick up a pie or a sausage roll for the greenway and eat it on a wall in Newport. Better than most cafés will sell you.
Quay Cottage	Seafood, Westport Quay	€€	By the harbour, low-ceilinged, candlelit, on the go since the late seventies. The chowder is the chowder. Don't bother ordering the steak - you came for the bay.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Knockranny House Hotel	Hotel & spa	On the hill on the Castlebar side of town, with the view of Croagh Patrick everyone wants. The kind of hotel where the staff have been there twenty years. La Fougère restaurant downstairs is its own destination.
Westport Plaza Hotel	Hotel	Right in the middle of town beside the Octagon. Walking distance to every pub on this list. Sister hotel to Castlecourt next door - same management, both reliable.
Wyatt Hotel	Boutique hotel	On the Octagon, named for the man who drew the town. Smaller and more design-led than the Plaza. The bar downstairs (J.J. O'Malley's) is essentially a feature of the room rate.
Boffin Lodge	B&B, Westport Quay	Six rooms down by the harbour. Quiet, properly run, breakfast you'd cross town for. Five minutes' walk along the Mall to the pubs.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A town drawn on paper first

Wyatt's plan

The Brownes had a castle and a village called Cathair na Mart on what is now the lawn of Westport House. In the 1770s the second earl, Peter Browne, decided the village was in the way of his view, knocked it down, and hired the English architect James Wyatt to draw a new town a mile up the road. Wyatt set the Carrowbeg river into stone-walled channels, lined the banks with limes, dropped eight Georgian houses around an octagonal market square, and that was that. Built between 1780 and 1788. Still working.

How a pirate married into the gentry

Grace and the Brownes

Westport House sits where Grace O'Malley - Granuaile, the pirate queen of Clew Bay - had a castle in the sixteenth century. Her great-great-granddaughter Maude Bourke married into the Browne family and brought the land with her, which is why the current owners can claim straight-line descent from a woman who sailed to London in 1593 to talk Elizabeth I out of hanging her son. The house keeps the dungeons of her old castle in the basement. They are exactly as cheerful as you'd expect.

The last Sunday in July

Reek Sunday

Croagh Patrick has been climbed on the last Sunday in July for at least 1,500 years, and probably much longer - the Christian pilgrimage layers neatly on top of a much older Lughnasa harvest festival. On a good year 15,000 to 25,000 people make the climb, some barefoot, some at dawn. The mountain is 764 metres of loose quartzite scree on the upper third and you do not want to be on it in cloud. If you're climbing, go any other day. The Sunday is for the pilgrims.

Ireland's first proper one

The Greenway

The Midland Great Western Railway ran a branch line from Westport out to Achill Sound from 1894 until 1937, when it became one of the last casualties of the rural rail closures. The track bed sat there for seventy years. In 2010 and 2011 Mayo County Council surfaced 42 kilometres of it as a traffic-free walking and cycling route - the first greenway of its scale in the country, and the template for every one that has followed. The New York Times put it on a top-three world list. Hire a bike at the station and you'll see why before Newport.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Croagh Patrick From the car park at Murrisk, ten kilometres west of town. 764m of climb, the upper third of which is loose scree at an angle that demands attention. Boots, not trainers - not flip-flops, ever. Pick a clear day and go early - the cloud sits on the summit by lunchtime more often than not.

7 km returndistance

3.5-4 hourstime

Great Western Greenway Westport to Achill Sound, on the bed of the old Achill railway. Traffic-free, family-doable in sections, the prettiest stretch is Newport to Mulranny. Hire a bike at Clew Bay Bike Hire by the station. Get the shuttle back if your legs go.

42 km one-waydistance

Full day by biketime

Westport Quay loop From the Octagon down the Mall along the Carrowbeg, past the harbour at the Quay, and back. Do it before breakfast. The light on Clew Bay first thing in summer is something you'll go on about for years.

5 km returndistance

1 hourtime

Westport House grounds The estate around the house is open to walkers - the lake, the avenue of limes, the views back across to the Reek. Skip the Pirate Adventure Park unless you have small children with you, in which case it is the entire reason for your visit.

4 km of trailsdistance

2 hourstime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Greenway empties out, the gorse goes yellow on the Reek, lambs everywhere. The pubs warm up again from St Patrick's Day onward.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The town is busy and Reek Sunday (last Sunday in July) is genuinely huge - book accommodation months ahead if you want a bed in late July. Long bright evenings make up for it.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The locals' season. Greenway in low light, big skies over Clew Bay, the festivals (food, arts, books) all stack into October. Pubs get back to themselves.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The town keeps trading - it's not a seasonal place - but Croagh Patrick is no joke in cloud and ice. Stick to the greenway and the bars and you'll be grand.

◐ Mind yourself

08 / 09

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Climbing Croagh Patrick in flip-flops

Mountain rescue lifts a dozen people off it every summer who tried. The upper scree shreds skin and ankles. Boots, layers, water - or pick a different mountain.

The "world's best chowder" boards on Bridge Street

Every pub in Westport claims an award. The chowder at Quay Cottage and at McCarthy's is the chowder. The chowder advertised on a chalkboard with three exclamation marks is not the chowder.

Reek Sunday if you only want the view

On the last Sunday in July there are queues on a 764m mountain. The pilgrimage is a real and serious thing. If you're climbing for the photo, go on a Tuesday in September instead and let the pilgrims have their morning.

Doing the greenway as an out-and-back from Westport

Forty-two kilometres each way is more cycling than most people want. Do Westport to Newport (12km, lunch, cycle back) or get the shuttle out to Achill and freewheel home. There is no medal for the full round-trip.

Getting there.

By car

Dublin to Westport is 3h 20m on the M4/N5 - 250km. Galway is 1h 30m via the N84 through Castlebar. Sligo is 1h 30m via Castlebar.

By bus

Bus Éireann 22 from Dublin Busáras runs daily via Mullingar and Castlebar. Local 450 connects Westport to Achill via the greenway villages.

By train

Direct from Dublin Heuston, three or four services daily, 3h 15m. The line terminates at Westport - you cannot accidentally overshoot. Bike racks on most services if you book ahead.

By air

Ireland West Airport (NOC) at Knock is 1 hour by car. Shannon (SNN) is 2h 15m. Dublin (DUB) is 3 hours.