Ferries for Dublin leave several times a day from Holyhead, on the western tip of Holy Island (Ynys Gybi), itself joined to the rest of Anglesey by causeways — Telford’s Stanley Embankment carries the old London road and the railway, and the A55 crosses further south. In the walls of a small Roman fort in the town, Caer Gybi, the sixth-century St Cybi founded a monastery, and a church dedicated to him has stood on the site ever since. Holyhead Mountain, the island’s highest point at 220 metres, has the Iron Age hillfort of Caer y Tŵr on its summit and sea on two sides. Below it, South Stack Lighthouse, built in 1809 on a rock stack reached by footbridge, sits below cliffs where guillemots, razorbills and choughs nest each spring. South of Holyhead, Trearddur Bay is a sandy resort good for swimming.
Photo Andrew Hall / Unsplash
