Keem Bay, the iconic horseshoe bay with golden sandy beach located at the western end of Achill Island, has been listed in ‘The 50 Best Beaches In The World’ by the travel website Big 7 Travel. The accolade is the latest in a string of awards for Keem, which achieved global prominence as one of the main locations for the 2022 movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’. An old fisherman’s cottage, one of only a handful of manmade structures in this remote bay, was used as the home of one of the film’s central characters, Colm Doherty, played by Brendan Gleeson. The Blue Flag beach at Keem was also used as a location in several scenes, including the finale, and was used in publicity posters for the movie.
This 2023 listing in Big 7 Travel’s top 50 beaches list is not the first time that Keem has featured in that website’s awards, and it comes in the same year that Keem was named ‘Best Beach in Ireland’ by Lonely Planet and voted Ireland’s Top Beach by readers of the Irish Independent newspaper.
Visitors to Keem are asked to abide by the principles of the Leave No Trace initiative.
