Beach That Washed Away in 1984 Suddenly Returns

Dooagh beach is back 33 years after it left
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted May 8, 2017 9:46 AM CDT
Updated May 13, 2017 1:54 PM CDT
Beach That Washed Away in 1984 Suddenly Returns
How Dooagh Beach looked in 2008.   (By Graham Horn / Wikimedia Commons)

The sea giveth, and the sea taketh away—and, it turns out, giveth again. A beach on a remote Irish island whose sand washed away in 1984 storms has formed once again. After what the Guardian calls a "freak tide" in mid-April, sand, hundreds of tons of it, was returned to Dooagh village on Achill Island. "The wind was coming from the north," Achill Tourism head Sean Molloy explains. "It was steady and must have transported sand in from elsewhere." A local bar and restaurant owner tells the Telegraph that small amounts of sand would return each spring, but it was never enough to restore the rocky shore to its former glory, a beach that now stretches about 1,000 feet and can be seen here.

It's not the first time the beach has performed a vanishing act. According to records, it previously washed away in the 1890s but was back by 1927, at which point a pier was built—and after which some luminaries, including novelist Graham Greene and a young Angela Lansbury, visited, reports the Irish Times. Ireland's beaches will be inspected next year, reports the Irish Post, and Molloy hopes the beach will still be there and gain blue-flag status. It could be a boon for Dooagh village, which one local explains has seen three hotels and the local shop close their doors in the beach's absence. (Closer to home, Miami Beach's sand comes from elsewhere, and that's a problem.)

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