A survey has listed Achill’s Keem Bay as the number one ‘wild swimming spot’ in the British and Irish Isles. The list was compiled by Ocean Bottle, a UK-based reusable bottle company. Ocean Bottle used data on water quality compiled by Government agencies and cross-referenced the results for over 800 waterways with Google’s user-submitted ratings and reviews for bathing locations. The results ranked Keem Bay top, ahead of Barafundle Bay, Mwent Beach and Marloes Sands in Wales, and Upton Towans in Cornwall in the top five. Galway’s Trá an Dóilín was sixth, with Donegal’s Dooey Beach also making the top ten.
The Ocean Bottle research reported a water cleanliness score of 20 for Keem Bay, based on the count of E.coli and Enterococci per 100ml. Keem also scored an average rating of 4.9 over 1683 reviews on Google.
The news comes as Keem was featured in the official poster for the forthcoming Martin McDonagh film ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’. The movie was filmed on location in Achill (and Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands in Galway) in the autumn of 2021 and is due for release in October 2022. Keem Bay was one of the locations used on Achill, and the poster features two of the film’s stars – Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell – looking across to the Minaun Cliffs from the white sands of Keem beach.
View the official post and trailer for The Banshees of Inisherin.
