Emigration ripped the heart out of Charlestown: generations of young people took the boat to England and left behind derelict homes and shuttered shops, a hollowing chronicled in a landmark 1968 book, The Death of an Irish Town.
Some returned to this corner of County Mayo for summer holidays – with children who were growing up with English accents and city ways – before vanishing back across the Irish Sea and leaving Charlestown to its decay.
