Famous People on Achill
 Achill's remote location and magnificent landscape has attracted a long list of interesting characters, from artists and writers seeking inspiration to inventors and innovators. Achill has also had its fair share of homegrown heroes and villains:
Heinrich Boll
German novelist Heinrich Boll first visited Achill in the 1950s. His account of his travels across Ireland and his first stay on Achill were recorded in a book, 'The Irish Journey', which was first published in 1957. This book offers a fascinating and often humourous insight into life on Achill at the time. Heinrich Boll was so taken with Achill that he returned annually each summer, staying at a cottage in Dugort during the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 he was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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Captain Boycott
Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was a former British army captain who resigned his commission in favour of a life as a country gentleman. He first came to Achill in 1856, leasing land at the western end of Achill Island. His holding included Keem Bay, where he briefly lived in an iron house, and large parts of Croaghaun. He later lived in Corrymore House, below the lake at Corrymore. Boycott spent about 20 years on Achill and was apparently a strict landlord to the locals. In 1873 he moved to an estate at Lough Mask, on mainland County Mayo, and it was here that the estate tenants rebelled and refused to have anything to do with the former Captain. This infamous episode gave rise to a new word in the English language - to 'boycott', meaning to shun or exclude.
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Granuaille (Grace O'Malley)
Granuaille (Grace O'Malley) is known in folklore as 'the pirate queen' in recognition of her practice of levying charges on any vessels sailing in the waters she controlled from her bases at Achill (Kildavnet Tower) and Clare Island. This remarkable woman lived from approximately 1530 to 1603 and was a member of the O'Malley Clan, a Gaelic family group which controlled the Clew Bay area of Mayo. She is revered as a fierce warrior, with the added intrigue that her adventures and battles were effectively undermining the authority of the British rulers of the time. She famously sailed to London for a summit with Queen Elizabeth, a meeting of possibly the two most powerful women in Europe at the time.
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Graham Greene
The English novelist Graham Greene visited Achill several times in the late 1940s. His mistress, the American society hostess Catherine Walston, had a holiday cottage in Dooagh. Greene enjoyed the rustic charm of the cottage and island life, and he wrote several times about Achill in his letters and diary notes. It is said that he completed the writing of his novel 'The Heart of the Matter' in the cottage at Dooagh, and also wrote parts of the novel 'The Fallen Idol'.
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Robert Henri
The American artist Robert Henri (1865-1929) first visited Achill Island in 1914 with his Dublin-born wife Marjorie. His was immediately taken with island life and particularly the rural innocence of the local children. The couple returned to Achill in 1924, following the Civil War, and stayed each summer for the next four years. From his residence at Corrymore House Henri painted hundreds of portraits of local children.
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Paul Henry
Belfast-born artist Paul Henry (1876-1958) first visited Achill with his artist wife Grace in 1910. Inspired by both the landscape and the rural way of life, the Henry's stayed on Achill for most of the next nine years. Paul Henry stayed at a number of locations on Achill, mainly in the area around Keel but also at Cloughmore and Dugort. His paintings of island life have now become iconic - in particular the paintings 'Launching the Currach', which shows fishermen setting off in a traditional canvas covered boat from the beach at Keem Bay, and 'The Potato Diggers', which shows local women digging for potatoes on the Achill hillsides.
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James Lynchehaun
James Lynchehaun is one of the most notorious characters to have come from Achill. A native of Achill Sound, he became a land agent for an English landlady, Mrs Agnes McDonnell, who owned property and land in the Valley. In 1894 an incident occurred in which Mrs McDonnell was savagely attacked and her house set on fire. Lynchehaun was the prime suspect and was arrested for the crime. However, he escaped custody and fled to America where he claimed that the actions were politically motivated (the victim was a British landowner at a time of great resentment among the native Irish against the British colonialists). His case made legal history in the United States as they ruled that he could not be extradited for what they regarded as a political act.
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