Dog's Bay is a horseshoe of pure white sand near Roundstone whose grains are not rock but crushed seashells, backed by rare machair dunes on a narrow tombolo jutting into the Atlantic.
Dog's Bay curves for more than a mile around a sheltered, south-facing bay. The striking part is the sand itself: it is not limestone but fragments of seashells and tiny sea creatures called foraminifera, giving it a glowing white colour.
The bay is well sheltered from currents, with crystal-clear water that shelves gradually. It is popular for swimming, windsurfing and kitesurfing, but there are no lifeguards, so only enter the water if you are a capable swimmer.
Dog's Bay and Gurteen Bay sit back to back on a sand tombolo, joined by a narrow strip of dunes. Walk across to Gurteen, an almost kilometre-long sweep that is often the more sheltered of the two when the wind picks up.
Continue clockwise past Gurteen and a short walk over the machair grassland brings you to two more small, little-visited beaches and a hidden sandy gully, usually with only grazing cattle for company.
A short climb up nearby Errisbeg Hill rewards you with views of Dog's Bay and Gurteen Bay gleaming side by side below, with the Twelve Bens and the Atlantic beyond.
Roundstone is a seven-minute drive away, with colourful terraced houses around a deep harbour, plus pubs, craft shops, art studios and locally caught seafood for a post-beach feed.
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