Years ago I went to this beach while scouting for new locations to photograph in the Dublin Bay area, and one of these places was Shankill Beach. A very easy spot to reach from the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit), just 15 minutes walk from the train station. 
From google maps I couldn't see anything peculiar to photograph, but sometimes it's really hard to judge from a photo taken from a satellite, so I thought I'll pay a visit there, to see how it looked in real life, and... It was rather disappointing. 
But it was years ago, with much less experience than now, where I was much less prepared (always bring trekking shoes to a rocky beach and always check the tides), and I came back home with practically no decent shots.
But apart from scouting, another important thing to do in this type of photography is to visit the same locations you already have been. One because with different condition, time of the day, season, tide level (which are pretty extreme here in Ireland), the same place might look different, maybe something changed in the meanwhile (or maybe not), but until you go there you don't know. And two is also for the forementioned reason, that you have more experience, and probably now I know better what to search to create a good composition.

So last Saturday I decided to again in that place, weather was interesting, mostly high and medium clouds, a bit windy, but not a big problem in that place as it's partially protected, and I thought I could finally take some good photos of that place.
Did I succeed? Well, in taking better photos than before, sure, in taking great photos of that place, not so much.
I was hoping for the high altitude clouds to give me a bright red sunset, but I had no luck. 
The beach itself didn't have much interesting on it, very bland from a photographic point of view, and nothing really did stand out to use as a foreground subject.
But, another important lesson, is that most of the times you go out, you will probably fail, but you must still go out for those few times where you come back home with a smile in the face because you know you took some great photos that time, worst case scenario you did a nice walk on the beach, which is always nice (well, a least with decent weather!).
Here a few photos I took that day, up to you, dear reader, to decide if they were worth the trip to there or not.