WESTPORT TOWN, County Mayo. The most beautiful town in Ireland? That's for you to decide!

Tonight we are visiting beautiful, beautiful Westport in the County Mayo.
The true test of any place, I believe, is whether it still looks good when the weather’s not so kind. Tonight, is one such night, it’s been raining, but you judge for yourself if Westport is beautiful, even in this weather.

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Westport is, as the name suggests, on the west coast of Ireland. It’s a very popular tourist destination, like many of the towns in the west, but given we’re 'off season' this is a chance to see it, as many summer holiday makers don’t. I think that’s useful, and it’s always good to see if a town has a life outside of the tourist season.

We see the Carrowbeg river, which flows through the town, in fact the river was a key element in Westport’s town planning. It has a lovely old stone bridge, which is much photographed, and gives Westport some of its quaint old world charm, I think you’ll agree,

We cross the bridge and head up the street directly in front, which, not surprisingly, is called Bridge Street, and is one of the towns most animated areas. Westport is a very we’ll kept town. And it’s on record as such. It’s a three-time winner of the Irish Tidy-Towns competition. I think you can probably see why.

It has a population approaching 7000 people, and why wouldn’t it? Did you know for example that Westport, according to an Irish Times competition, is the best place in Ireland to live?

People flock here from all over the world, particularly in summer, probably for some of the reasons that I’ve already mentioned, but also because of its close proximity to so many amazing blue flag beaches, to beautiful Connemara and of course Clew Bay and Achill Island, which Naked Ireland viewers will be well familiar with by now, because of my series of films.

Another interesting fact is that there are now, since the war in 2022, 1241 Ukrainians living in the town. Westport has certainly done its bit there and can be very proud of its record.

Many of you will have seen the film I made a while back on this place, with its striking red and black shop front, Matt Molloy’s pub. This is a very famous music pub owned by one of the musicians in the Chieftains, one of Ireland’s most famous traditional music groups. If you’d like to see inside, or learn more about it check out my Naked Ireland film on this.

   • Matt Molloy's, Westport, Ireland. Is ...  

You’ll have noticed that there’s no shortage of pubs in this street. It’s one of the things Ireland’s famous for after all. But there’s also a lot of restaurants. This is one of the ways in which it’s fair to say Ireland’s changed in that last few decades – food culture is very much a thing now, whereas it wasn’t when I was growing up. I guess it’s another one of those things that came with embracing Europe. But of course, all those hungry tourists need to be fed – and some of them (like the French) have high standards! So hopefully we’ve risen to the challenge.

At the top of the street we have an incredible looking art deco clock. And at the base of the clock, we have one of the old Irish Telephone boxes – now used to house a defibrillator.

Westport is a Heritage Town with many Georgian buildings and its one of the few Irish towns to have been planned, rather that to have just sprung up organically.

We’re up on Shop Street now heading down to an area called the octagon, obviously so named for its shape although it’s not obvious unless you look at it on a map. The octagon is another example of how this town has been planned, Westport is a little Georgian gem. As we get to the octagon we’ll see the elegant Market house, which was one of the principal features of the town when it was first conceived. The Octagon has a statue of St Patrick. Originally this was a statue of a guy called George Clendining who established the bank here back in 1826. But in 1990 the statue was replaced with one of St Patrick - switching the money lender for the saint, I think that’s probably fair enough.

You’ll have noticed that all of the streets we’ve seen have been quite wide. That is again a feature of the 18th Century town planning in Westport. A lot of Irish towns have very thin streets – this is very well proportioned.


We arrive at The Mall, and the river here was one of the key aspects of the Georgian town layout. You’ll notice the river is built up on each side and the roads are lined with trees. We pan round to look at St Mary’s Church all lit up and looking splendid, complete with a beautiful circular stained-glass window.

There’s something very special about a river running through the centre of a town. And the way this is designed is exceptional.