Mayo Gems: The Lost Valley of Uggool
Tom Gillespie continues his 'Mayo Gems' series of places to visit now the Covid restrictions are lifted
THE Lost Valley is located west of Louisburgh on the Wild Atlantic Way, sheltered beneath Mweelrea (the Bald King), the highest mountain in the west of Ireland.
The Lost Valley of Uggool, in Gaelic ‘Ubh Iolair’, meaning Eagles Egg - so 'The Lost Valley of the Eagles egg' is the more complete title.
The Lost Valley is a poignant reminder of times gone by, the silence now undisturbed by the families who once lived and farmed here.
It offers a unique window into the cultural heritage of the west coast of Ireland in terms of 19th century way of life and the catastrophic disruptions of the Famine and its aftermath.
Indeed the Uggool Valley is in itself arguably the finest memorial of the great famine that remains today, quilted as it is with the clearly visible remains of a multitude of potato ridges that have lain undisturbed and unattended for nearly two centuries.
In the valley visitors can take a walk back in time to when children played around the long deserted village now overgrown with hazel and bracken, from which the villagers were cruelly evicted as the Great Famine ended so that high society could maintain their living standards. The quietude that surrounds the remains of the deserted village today is very striking in such a picturesque setting, overlooking the Atlantic.
The Bourke family have owned and farmed the Lost Valley of Uggool for almost a century. Before that they were employed by the landlord to farm in the valley and before that they were actually one of the families who were evicted and driven out when the roofs of their homes were pulled down.
The present owners, Gerard and Maureen Bourke, and their family became the first to enjoy safe and convenient access to their home in the valley when, in the late 1980s, they built a roadway over the mountainside. Many previous generations of the family had traversed the mountainside on foot to gain access to the valley or had taken a dangerous route through the foreshore when the tide was out.
No doubt this inaccessibility contributed in a major way to the preservation of the heritage in the Lost Valley, as only the most intrepid visitors ventured in and indeed very many of the locals say they had never seen the valley previously. Having completed the roadway, the family turned their attention to the creation of a looped walkway around their spectacular valley.
The Bourke family offer a six-kilometre guided three-hour walk on well developed trails, suitable for all ages, where the heritage and history of the lost valley will be recounted and explained in a relaxed friendly atmosphere as visitors make their way among the different points of interest in the valley. Visit their website at https://www.thelostvalley.ie/ for further details.