BOOKS: New guide to touring Mayo’s Mullet Peninsula

Having worked for Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage company, for 37 years, Dublin native Neal Doherty decided it was time to leave the corporate world behind him. With a keen interest in history and an ability to tell a story or two, Neal soon found his second calling, this time as a tour guide showing tourists around the capital city.
“I love doing it so much, I would do it for nothing, but I won’t tell my clients that,” he joked when speaking to The Mayo News.
Fast forward 14 years and Neal has brought his own unique tour guiding style to Mayo, having left the capital for the more leisurely pace of Belmullet and Elly Bay, where he now calls home.
Since moving west on a permanent basis six years ago, Neal’s company Alchemy Tours provides tours around his adopted county and he has recently released a new guide book, ‘The Complete Guide to Belmullet and the Mullet Peninsula’.
The book presents three possible tours of the area: a tour to the south of the peninsula, a tour to the north and a walking tour of the town. As well as highlighting the points of interest along the various tours, Neal tells the story of the history of the area including the resting place of the Children of Lír, the Erris Cattle Raid, the D-Day weather forecast as well as the visit of JM Synge and the prophecies of Brian Rua U’Cearbhain.
“As I was doing my tours I was constantly updating and refreshing and getting new information and once I built it up I used it to generate a book. I accumulated the information over a period of time and there is not a day goes by where I don’t find something new to talk about in the area. Gandhi said ‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever’. It is a pretty good philosophy for a tourist guide, so I never stop learning,” he explained.

Third publication
This is Neal’s third publication having previously written ‘The Complete Guide to The Statues and Sculptures of Dublin City’ and ‘The Complete Guide to The Streets of Dublin City’. He credits his mother for developing his love of history and explained as a child she would bring him to historic locations across the city.
The son of parents from Co Donegal, Neal explained that he has no family connections with Erris or Mayo and came upon the barony by chance during a trip to Mayo with his wife.
“We were staying in Westport and ended up taking a drive towards Blacksod Bay and we fell in love with the place. You are driving across the largest blanket bog in Europe which has its own beauty but the scenery is absolutely spectacular. When we went down as far as Faulmore myself and my wife were walking along the beach on a beautiful day in May and had the place to ourselves. The waves were coming and the scenery was spectacular overlooking Slievemore on Achill. It’s a magical place,” he said.
They continued to visit the area a couple of times a year for the next five years until they were able to buy an old farmhouse in Mullaghroe and build a holiday home. The holiday home is now their permanent home and Neal’s new life involves bringing tourists on day trips around the region in his Land Rover Discovery.
“The initial plan was to come for one year and then we managed to stay for three and now we are on our sixth year. We have settled in pretty well. The people of Belmullet are so generous in terms of their welcome. You will never be left standing on your own before someone comes along and talks to you and finds out about you. It is a place I found with a warm welcome,” he explained.

Seal of approval
As a blow in, Neal is delighted to note that the new book has received the seal of approval from locals who feel that it is something the area needed to build the tourism brand. As well as being used by tourists, he said that it is also being sent abroad to members of the local Diaspora.
Neal has high hopes for tourism in Belmullet and describes it as a ‘hidden jewel’ which you immediately fall in love with once you discover it.
“After the lockdown when we only had staycationers, people discovered the place and were amazed by it and talked about coming back again and again. Once people discover it they fall in love with it just as we did and become regular visitors. I did a tour with an American couple who came from the Midwest of the United States who came over here and out of the blue stayed for a month in an AirBnB. It is our hidden jewel.”

‘The Complete Guide to Belmullet and the Mullet Peninsula’ is on sale in local bookshops around the county and can be ordered on www.alchemytours.ie/shop