Tóin an tSeanbhaile is one of the flattest places on Achill Island, a shallow plain encircled by low hills which is bordered mostly by the sea, with Ridge Point to the north, and Sruhill Lough to the south. To the southeast lies the village of Dún Ibhir, to the west lies Dúmha Goirt and to the south lies Bun an Churraigh. The bedrock of the area consists mainly of Schist and Gneiss, with lowland blanket bog to the south, and machair and rocky seashore to the north and west. The area has a number of lakes, Lough Gall, Loch na mBreac, Lough Doo and Sruhill Lough. These lakes have healthy stocks of Brown trout, some sea trout, and Lough Gall is also artificially stocked with Rainbow trout. A machair exists near Lough Doo, which has been designated a Special Area of Conservation by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, under the European Habitats Directive. The site itself is of international importance in the conservation of mosses and liverworts, with some scarce and rare species, Catoscopium nigritum and Fossombronia incurva, and is in fact the only location in Ireland that the liverwort Leiocolea gillmannii has been recorded at. Much of the southern townland was designated a Natural Heritage Area by Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, in 2007 because of its importance as a hyperoceanic blanket bog habitat. The village itself is broken into a number of smaller subsections - Shruffle, Fóirín, Árdán and the street. These divisions go largely unnoticed through the year until 23 June, which sees subsection having its own bonfire, as per local tradition.
History
Tóin an tSeanbhaile is one of the oldest settlements on Achill island, as evidenced by its name, with a number of prehistoric archaeological sites, including a Cairn to the south of the village near Bun an Churraigh, a Midden, Ringfort and Enclosure on Caraun Point, a Crannóg near the centre of the modern village. A cillín, a burial ground for the unbaptised, mainly children is also found on Caraun point, and which gives it its Irish name Rinn na Leanbh. John Goodacre sold the of land around Tóin an tSeanbhaile which had been bought by his father, to the 8th Earl of Cavan, Frederick J.W. Lambart in the early 1870s. Lambart built a hunting lodge on this land, and in 1888 his wife sold the land to Mrs Agnes McDonnell. The then landlady and the estate became national and international news in 1894, when Mrs. McDonnell was brutally attacked by her bailiff, James Lynchehaun, and left for dead after he set fire to her house. His arrest, and subsequent escape were reported in the media, and became part of the popular culture of the era, with references to the affair in J.M. Synge's drama The Playboy of the Western World, Joyce'sUlysses and ballads of the time. The house was subsequently rebuilt by McDonnell, and completed in 1902. The estate was purchased from McDonnell's son, Leslie Elliot, by the Gallagher family in 1942. It currently operates as a bar and hostel. In recent years, the story of Mrs. McDonnell and Lynchehaun has become the subject of fiction, with a book, The Playboy and the Yellow Lady published in 1986, The Veiled Woman of Achill published in 2012 and a 1998 film Love and Rage, starring Daniel Craig as Lynchehaun, and Greta Scacchi as Agnes McDonnell. The 1911 census show a population of 253, which has declined today to an estimated population of 113.
Although a small village, Tóin an tSeanbhaile has a number of amenities, including a Primary School, Soccer Pitch (Fr. O'Brien Park, home ground of Achill Rovers, a Roman Catholic church, a Pier and blue flag beaches, a Pitch and Putt course, as well as a Bar and Hostel. The village has one postbox, one bus stop and is served by the Bus Éireann 440 once a day in each direction.
