I took my father to Belmullet in 2006, for his 75th birthday. I had booked two rounds of golf at Carne Golf Links. Conscious of his age, I rented a buggy for our second round and ended up riding it alone as dad strode across a landscape more befitting a giant’s playground. I would see him one moment only to find he had disappeared the next, the dunescape swallowing him whole before spitting him out a hundred yards away, across terrain no buggy could navigate.
The memories of those two days sank in deep, immovable, unforgettable. Carne harnesses the raw power of towering dunes that swell and buckle and engulf you. At times you are lost in their depths, at others you are high above with views crackling across the horizon. Every step embraces the end-of-the-world spirit that defines this links, as well as Belmullet, itself.
Thanks to its designer, Carne feels like it has been here for generations, and yet it only opened in 1992. Its evolution is one of vision, perseverance, commitment and co-operation, and Carne’s story now appears on the pages of a new book: Building Carne. Published in December, it has been written by Eamon Mangan, a Belmullet native and one of the driving forces behind the creation of this magical golf course.
“Probably the greatest achievement in making Carne Golf Links a reality,” says Mangan “was getting the whole community on board and persuading government funding agencies of the benefits of a links golf course as a tourist attraction. That was key to the success of the Carne development.”
Building Carne Golf course at Belmullet in Co Mayo
Belmullet is a remote, almost cut-off part of Ireland, tucked away from the world in the farthest reaches of Co. Mayo. But that does little to quell the passion of its people, where community is all. Belmullet Golf Club, for example, was founded in 1925, and called Binghamstown home for almost 70 years before moving to Carne. Cattle roamed the course, square greens were protected by wire fences, and golfers had to possess certain skills to deal with both. In 2025, it celebrates its centenary.
The ’origin’ story is always fascinating, whether it’s Bull Island (home of The Royal Dublin and St Anne’s golf links), formed on the recommendations of Captain William ‘Mutiny-on-the-Bounty’ Bligh, or Doonbeg Golf Club, with its coastline dunes once seen as the ideal location for Lahinch Golf Club, in the 1890s. Carne is no different.
It started when Michael Mangan, Eamon’s brother, returned to Belmullet in the early 1980s, after several years in London. He purchased a small farm which came with a 17-part-share of common grazing grounds in a sandy wasteland known as Carne Banks. He never visited. A few years later the Irish government announced a programme to divide commonages into plots, with grant money offered to build formal fencelines. Michael found himself owning a plot of land he had never seen and he asked one of the other 16 farming families to show him where this land was located.
That was the trigger. Seeing the scale and beauty of the land, with dunes rising 150 feet above sea level, Michael had an idea.
A golf course would provide benefits for the community, one of which would be land free from wire fences. It became a community effort and the goal was to hinder the government programme and replace it with a project that encouraged economic activity and tourism.
The dream faced many challenges, including government co-operation, raising finances and getting the buy-in from all 17 farmers. The majority of the 17 were on board immediately, and after further meetings everyone agreed that this was the way forward.
Using only a team of volunteers, the newly-formed committee spent several years sourcing funds and negotiating the intricacies of government bureaucracy. It was a long, hard road. Finally, the money – all £2 million of it – was arranged.
The next step was to find a golf course architect who could work with a terrain of such raw power. Who better than Eddie Hackett, a man who once said that he merely dressed up what the good Lord provides.
Building Carne by Eamon Mangan
“Eddie avoided, as far as possible, any disturbance to the natural towering dunes,” says Eamon Mangan. “He never tired of saying that the dunes were sculpted by the elements and that they must be protected. He taught us all a new respect for the landscape that we had grown up in and that we had taken for granted all our lives.”
At almost 80 years of age, Eddie walked the land as the routing came to him. He saw opportunities where others saw mountains. He found green sites amid the dunes and then plotted how golfers would reach them. There was no fancy technology employed: Eddie worked by eye and instinct. But he was always open to ideas.
On the small strip of land that touches the Atlantic ccean, the committee eyed up the possibility of an extra hole.
“The committee’s suggestion of a par-3 by the sea,” says Mangan, referencing the original 14th, “turned out to be even better than we anticipated. It is now a firm favourite, being both scenic and challenging.”
The original front nine were developed between 1987 and 1989, opening for play in 1992. There was no big machinery employed, no major earth movement, no manufacturing features. Carne was formed of and by the land. It is a masterpiece of what is possible with little more than imagination and hard graft.
The back nine, a far more tumultuous affair closer to the ocean, opened in 1993.
The work was recognised almost instantly, with Golf World voting Carne one of the top 10 new golf developments in the UK and Ireland, in 1994. Many more plaudits followed, putting Carne on the golf map.
While it can hardly be called the final stage – no golf course ever stops evolving – the creation of a third nine, in 2013, completed Carne’s layout. Both Eddie Hackett, in very rough outline, and American architect Jim Engh created plans for a third nine, but it was a Scot – Ally McIntosh – who came on board to design what became known as the Kilmore nine. For a cost of roughly €200,000, and using only a six-tonne excavator and a six-tonne dumper, nine holes of incredible scale and drama were created amidst the 260-acre property’s most imposing dunes.
Today, the 27 holes form two courses: the Hackett course (Eddie’s original layout but with the nines reversed) and the Wild Atlantic Dunes, which merges Eddie’s back nine with McIntosh’s nine.
‘Building Carne’ is a unique collection of stories, drawings, photographs and letters which chronicle the journey of how Carne Golf Links came to be, starting with a small group of people who had a dream in the 1980s, and embracing an entire community that made this golf course the giant it is today.
“I have great memories of working alongside fellow members of Erris Tourism, Belmullet Golf Club, businesspeople, farmers, community clubs and national organisations,” Eamon Mangan says. “So many people contributed in different ways and it is heartening to see Carne continue to progress and thrive. I felt it was an important part of our history and heritage and it was a good time to record the story, in the centenary year of the club.”
*Building Carne is available from www.mayobooks.ie
