Mullaghmore is a small fishing village on a small peninsula in the top corner of Sligo, almost over the Leitrim line. The headland is a five-kilometre loop. The village itself is a pier, a hotel, a restaurant, a few rows of houses, and a beach that empties into Donegal Bay. Classiebawn Castle stands above it all on the hill, gothic and unmistakable.
Two things have happened here that the place still carries. In August 1979 the IRA killed Lord Mountbatten and three others with a bomb on his boat just off the head - the story sits in the village whether you ask about it or not. Forty years later the reef outside the headland became one of the most serious big-wave spots in Europe, and tow-in surfers from California and Cornwall and Lahinch started turning up in winter to watch the swell charts. The same headland, two very different reasons to be there.
Most of the year, though, it's a quiet harbour. Walk the loop. Eat seafood at the pier. Stand at the back wall and look west at a slab of Atlantic with nothing between you and Newfoundland. The village does not need you to make a fuss of it, and is the better for it.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
Mullaghmore Head is a five-kilometre road around a rocky finger of north Sligo. Classiebawn Castle on the hill, Donegal Bay opening west, Benbulben squared off to the south.
Walks & outings → 02 The waveWhen the Atlantic lines up in winter, the reef off the head produces a wave the tow-in crews chase. Conor Maguire's 60-foot ride here on 28 October 2020 put the place on the surf map for good.
Stories & lore → 03 The harbourThe Mullaghmore Pier was built under Lord Palmerston in the 1840s. Boats still go out. The Pier Head Hotel sits at one end, Eithna's restaurant a few doors along.
Stories & lore →| Place | Type | € | Local note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eithna's by the Sea | Seafood restaurant | €€€ | Eithna O'Sullivan has been cooking seafood at the pier since 1990. Lobster, crab, oysters, seaweed. Not Michelin-starred - don't believe a guidebook that says it is - but the kind of seafood room locals send visitors to without hedging. |
| Pier Head Hotel - bar food | Hotel bar & restaurant | €€ | At the end of the harbour. Chowder, fish and chips, a Guinness with the view of the bay. The bar is where the village ends up of an evening. |
| Place | Type | Local note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pier Head Hotel | Hotel | The hotel in Mullaghmore, on the harbour. Rooms overlooking the pier or the bay. Spa attached. Books out for surf swells and summer weekends - book early. | |
| B&Bs around the head | B&B | A handful of family-run B&Bs sit on the loop road around the headland. Smaller, quieter, and the morning view tends to be the one you came for. | |
The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
Quiet, long light building, the loop drive at its best. Surf still fires on the bigger spring swells.
Beach village in beach weather. Book the hotel and Eithna's well ahead. The bank-holiday weekend in August is the busiest of the year.
The shoulder. Storms returning, the village to itself, the first proper swells of the surf season.
Big-wave season. When the swell charts go red, the cliffs above the head fill up with surf photographers. Otherwise quiet - much of the place closes for the off-season.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
It is a private home. There are no tours. The view from the loop road is the view.
The wave at Mullaghmore Head is a tow-in wave with serious consequences. The professionals respect it. You should watch it from the cliffs.
People here have lived with the day for nearly fifty years. The facts are on Wikipedia. The pier has a memorial. Let the village hold it as it chooses.
Mullaghmore in fifteen minutes is a hotel and a hill. Mullaghmore on foot, around the loop, with an hour on the back of the head, is the actual place.
Sligo town to Mullaghmore is 40 minutes on the N15 and then the R279 out to the head. Bundoran is 15 minutes north. The Tullaghan turn-off in Leitrim is 5 minutes east.
Bus Éireann 480 runs Sligo-Bundoran via Cliffoney, the nearest village to Mullaghmore - a 30-minute walk or a short taxi from there.
Nearest station is Sligo, then road. There is no rail in this corner of the country.
Ireland West (Knock) is 1h 30m. City of Derry is 1h 45m. Dublin is 3 hours.