The 'Colony' was very successful for a time and regularly produced a newspaper called the 'Achill Missionary Herald'. The Mission included schools, cottages, an orphanage, a small hospital and a hotel (nowThe Slievemore Hotel).

In 1831 the Protestant Reverend Edward Nangle founded a proselytising mission at Dugort. She died around 1603 and is buried in the O'Malley family tomb on Clare Island.Īchill Mission (The Colony) One of Achill's most famous historical sites is that of the Achill Mission or 'the Colony' at Dugort. She is reputed to have met with Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1593. Grace became a fearless leader and gained fame as a sea captain and pirate. The O'Malleys were a powerful seafaring family, who traded widely and refused to submit to English rule. Her father was the chieftain of the barony of Murrisk. Grace O' Malley, or Granuaile, the most famous of the O' Malley's was born in Clare Island around 1530. Grace O'Malley's Castle Kildamhnait Castle is a 15th century tower house associated with the O' Malley Clan, who were once a ruling family of Achill. Megalithic tombs (see picture, right) and promontory forts testifying to this can be seen at Slievemore, along the Atlantic Drive and on Achill Beg Island.

Achill has a long history of human settlement and there is evidence that Achill was inhabited as many as 5,000 years ago. Granuaile maintained a castle at Kildownet in the 16th century.

Settlement increased during the Iron Age, and the dispersal of small forts around the coast indicate the warlike nature of the times. The island would have been mostly forest until the Neolithic people began crop cultivation. It is believed that at the end of the Neolithic Period (around 4000 BC), Achill had a population of 500–1,000 people.

Clew bay drowning