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While DUGORT , a clutch of houses nestling at the base of Slievemore mountain, lacks the arresting open views of the Atlantic on offer at Keel or Dooagh, it does make a more comfortable base, both in terms of accommodation and atmosphere. Follow the signs for the Deserted Village from Keel, and take the Atlantic Drive for Dugort. Half a mile out of Keel, a signposted footpath leads to a mini megalithic tomb set in the hillside where the gorse meets the heather - well worth the climb, if only for the view. A couple of miles further on, some ruined buildings and scattered gravestones are all that's left of a village known simply as The Settlement . It was founded in 1834 by a Protestant vicar, the Reverend E. Nangle, who bought up sixty percent of the island and built schools and a printing press in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to evangelize the islanders. Towering to the north is Slievemore , Achill's highest mountain at 2205ft - a massive pile of quartzite and mica. Here on its southern slopes stands a dolmen with a stone circle at each end and a booley village of huts formerly used during summer pasturing - a reminder of a much newer, but equally extinct, transhumant way of life. At the foot of Slievemore, on the seaward side, are the Seal Caves , burrowing way back under the mountain; you can visit them by boat from the tiny pier at Dugort. To get away from the seaside holiday atmosphere that often overtakes Dooagh and Keel (especially on bank holiday weekends), you can stay on the southern slopes of the mountain at McDowell's Hotel (closed Oct-March; tel 098/43148; GBP40-55/?50.79-69.84), which does excellent food, including vegetarian, and has frequent traditional music sessions, while in Dugort itself you can stay in comfort at Gray's Guesthouse (tel 098/43244; GBP33-40/?41.90-50.79) a rambling establishment comprised of several houses, taking up one street of the tiny hamlet. Five miles east, and signposted from all the main roads, is the Valley House Hostel (closed Dec-March; tel 098/47204), a handsome, crumbling edifice that was once home to the woman whose story is told in J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World - her rejected suitor burned down a barn and tossed her onto the flames. The place now operates as a hostel with four-bed rooms and the luxury of a bar in the courtyard behind the house. Dugort has two campsites : the Seal Caves Caravan and Camping Park (closed Oct-March; tel 098/43262) and Lavele's Golden Strand Caravan and Camping Park (closed Oct-March; tel 098/47232).
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