The enchanted Irish beach disappears 12 years and appears overnight

Imagine waking up one day and finding that your beautiful local beach is more - gone, its beautiful white sand swept away from the strange storm. Go about your daily work for 12 years and then suddenly the beach is back, all glory restored by another storm. This is what happened in the island of Achille, off the coast of Ireland, where residents celebrate the return of the shore of the beautiful Gulf of Ashelim, which took them in 2005.

This in itself is noticeable enough, but the story gets even better! You see, another beach in Achille once did disappear, but it took longer to return. The beach in Dunah, only six miles (10 km) away from the Gulf of Achlem, was restored earlier this year after the spring storm swept all the sand in 1984, leaving only the rock pools behind.

Photo: Achill Tourism/Facebook

Back to Ashlem Bay and a beautiful surprise I got the inhabitants of the island. According to Moului, from Asheil Tourism, the last storm has cleared the coast of most rock and rock, then this past summer storm Bryan finished work and replaced all the debris with a thick layer of sand.

Local legend says that the beach in the Gulf of Achillem is coming back briefly every seven years, but this time around it took a little longer than that. Not that anyone complains.

"There is a local folklore that stretches for hundreds of years to say this beach comes back every seven years and then disappears again ... It was last seen in 2005 and remained for a few months at the time before it was washed again," Malloy said.

Photo: YouTube screengrab

As you can imagine, everyone on the island of Achill is thrilled to have their sandy beach back, and even though no one knows how long it’s going to be around for, they are making the most of the time they’ve got before it disappears again.

“I’ve been to visit the beach. It was the first time I was ever down on that part of the shore, even though I’ve been here all my life, and I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. It’s absolutely stunning, it’s a new favorite spot for me now. I don’t know how long it will be there, but I encourage anyone who is around to go and see it while it’s there,” Molloy added.Some may be quick to attribute the phenomenon to climate change, but that’s not the reason these two beaches in Achill keep disappearing. Dr Kevin Lynch, a geographer at NUI Galway, told the Irish Times that these occurrences are the result of hydrodynamics and sediment supply, and lengthy studies have ruled out any climate change impact.

“In Dooagh’s case, the wind direction changed the hydrodynamics of the bay, and may have washed in an offshore sandbank. This may be similar for Ashleam, and it could be that erosion on one part of the coast has provided a new sediment supply.”

Regardless of what’s causing them, disappearing and reappearing beaches are just part of what makes nature so fascinating.