Glengad

Gleann an Ghad/Dún Ceartáin Glengad/Dooncarton
Village
Glengad, overlooking Sruwaddacon Bay.
Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 54°16′41″N 9°49′07″W / 54.27792°N 9.818702°W / 54.27792; -9.818702
Country	Ireland
Province	Connacht
County	County Mayo

Glengad (Irish: Gleann an Ghad, meaning 'valley of the withes')^[1] is a Gaeltacht village in the parish of Kilcommon in northwest County Mayo, Ireland. It is also known as Dooncarton (Irish: Dún Ceartáin, meaning 'Cartan's Fort'),^[1] a name which comes from an Iron Age tribal chieftain called Ciortan, a character who appears in the Ulster Cycle legend of the Táin Bó Flidhais.

The village which is largely linear and without a main street, lies to the northwest and northeast of Dooncarton Hill in the parish of Kilcommon in Erris. The different areas of Glengad are known under different names. Glengad East is known as Baile Grainne. Middle Glengad was known as Spleckstown and Baile Lecan. West Glengad or Old Glengad was and still is known as Sean Bhaile. Every house in the village looks over Shruth Fhada Con meaning Long hound bay but which is commonly called Sruwaddacon Bay or Broadhaven Bay below.

It has a proliferation of prehistoric archaeology including several megalithic tombs of differing types including wedge, court and portal dolmens, and a well preserved stone circle in Baile Lecan.

Much of Glengad is a Special Area of Conservation and Sruwaddacon Bay is both an S.A.C.^[2] and a S.P.A (Birds Directive) - Special Protected Area for Birds.^[3] It is also an E.U. protected N.H.A. (Natural Heritage Area)^[4] In May and June the air is filled with the songs of the sky larks hovering so high in the sky that they are almost invisible. Goldcrests abound in winter. Unfortunately for the local sand martins whose nest holes were in the cliffs at Glengad Beach, Royal Dutch Shell sent in their diggers and removed the cliffs, placing nets to stop the birds returning.^[5] The 'new' temporary cliffs they rebuilt mechanically don't seem to hold the same appeal for the species. Caubeen Mountain (Dooncarton) sweeps down to Broadhaven Bay and Sruwaddacon Estuary and has some of the most spectacular and scenic views to be found in the county if not the entire country.

Glengad is the proposed landfall site for the contentious pipeline from the Corrib gas field, and is the ongoing scene of protests against the project.