Joyce Fegan: There's a reason Seamus Heaney said to drive out west

"Twelve months later, has our gratitude for this island matured beyond the term 'staycation'? Because it's not that there are worse places you could "stay" for a vacation, but on a good day, can you find me a better one?"

The majestic Keem Bay on Achill Island has been included among Lonely Planet's Top 20 beaches in Europe.

Sitting on a deserted white strand, next stop Newfoundland, with shallow turquoise water rippling softly towards you and blue skies up above, the Great Famine is the farthest thing from your blissed-out mind.

And yet here on Omey Island, in Connemara, between 1841 and 1851, its population almost halved because of hunger, poverty and misery.