Rossbeigh contains a large volume of sand dunes and herbaceous vegetation.[2][3] It is considered an important habitat for flora and fauna,[4] including wildfowl (salmon and clam are locally farmed).[5]
During the early 2000s, slow but prolonged erosion caused by changes in tidal range, wave height and length, and a reduction in sediment deposits, lead to the receding of some of the dunes.[8] Rossbeigh was breached during a winter 2008 storm when a 1200 ft sand dune was collapse by the sea, splitting the breaking the former two-mile sandspit into two, effectively making the outer part of the spit a tidal island.[9] The Rossbeigh Strand Tower, which had been a landmark to Castlemaine Harbour for over 100 years, collapsed in February 2011. The tower has since been moved to the nearby village of Glenbeigh and restored.[10]
As the split acts as a divide from Dingle bay, the collapse was described in 2020 as putting "homes across the bay at risk as climate change threatened even more frequent extreme events."[11] However, Jimmy Murphy, of the School of Engineering at University College Cork was optimistic that dunes would begin to build back up. In 2020 he said: "people think when you get erosion that the sand disappears, but the sand has to go somewhere. It is deposited — about 10m tonnes — further out, and we feel it will make its way back. There is a huge amount of sand sitting out there, and...we think...that it will eventually make its way back in here and you will get your dunes reforming".[11]
Gallery
Sand dunes leading to the "back beach" roadway
Large beach sand dune
Wreck of the 19th century schoonerSunbeam in 1983[12]
![Wreck of the 19th century schooner Sunbeam in 1983[12]](File:Sunbeam_(1860)_shipwreck_on_Rossbeigh_Beach,_Co_Kerry,_Ireland_05.jpg)
