Great Blasket Island

I awoke this morning to an overwhelmingly gray sky, a gray world, and as I looked out from my bedroom window over the expanse of Perkins Creek, I reminded myself that it is a bright sunny day above the cloud cover. So bright is the sunshine on the tops of the clouds that you can barely keep your eyes open to gaze upon them. But, today Urbanna is living in the shadow of the clouds. And I am reminded of Great Blasket Island.

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Ireland twice. Our first trip, in 2006, was actually our honeymoon, which we took with friends, a couple who acted as our tour guides. We covered the southwestern quadrant of Ireland. Three years later we returned with a larger group and covered the northeastern quadrant. Although we never made an actual plan, it was always our goal to return and visit the portions we had missed.

Out of all the places we visited, my favorite remains Great Blasket Island, the westernmost point in Ireland (in the roiling North Atlantic). It’s part of County Kerry and accessed by a rough ferry off a dock at the bottom of a winding pedestrian path down a cliff in Dunquin.

I like it because it is a place of dreams and echoing memories of people long gone who chose to live in extreme and remote conditions.

Although it was early June 2006, the day of our visit was gray and blustery in the morning, but by afternoon we were in full sun. Dressed in layers of wool sweaters and windbreakers with hats strapped firmly under our chins we were bounced in the spray of the open stern of the boat. Dolphins accompanied us as we traversed the nearly two miles of water on the 30-minute ride from Dunquin to the very rough rock landing on the island. It was a steep climb up the rocky shoreline to the grassland where it was finally green and soft enough for a village to have been built.

The only inhabitants of the island, other than the seals, birds, and rabbits, were a couple of sweet-natured donkeys and a large flock of sheep which was scattered across the grassy slopes facing Dunquin across the water.

In its heyday, there were never more than 160 people living on the island, usually far fewer. Census records show only 27 people living there in 1951. When the island was finally deserted in 1954, the stone cottages were abandoned to the elements. And that is how we found them that day, crumbling, mostly roofless, donkeys, rabbits, and sheep wandering in and out as they pleased. What I found amazing was that these homes were built on the slope, we’re talking a 45-degree angle. I imagined a toddler stumbling out the front door and rolling all the way down to the edge of the grass and tumbling off the rocky cliffs into the crashing waves below. I wondered if the sheep and donkeys didn’t have legs on one side that were 6 inches longer than those on the other side.

The village takes up a minute portion of the island. It’s a steep climb to the backbone ridge of this place that seems to be nothing but rock and grass. From what I saw, the windward side is steeper and rockier and appears to have been left to nature. But beyond the village are acres of grazing fields, and I guess partitioned squares where they grew their potatoes and other crops. Beyond those, you can make your way down to a beautiful protected sandy beach. I took photos of the seals playing in and just beyond the breaking waves there. They were watching us as we watched them. I was reminded of that lovely movie, “The Secret of Roan Innish.”

Because the island is completely unforested, the inhabitants heated their homes and cooked by burning heather, peat, and turf in their fireplaces.

They had also kept cattle there, and we learned that transporting a bull to the island entailed getting that beast into a little currach, a hand-built row boat, sometimes with a sail, with a wood frame overlaid with hides (now canvas) with multiple layers of tar to seal and waterproof. Forget about having a local doctor or veterinarian. And in stormy weather, when the sea was too rough, the island would be cut off completely from the mainland for however long the weather lasted, sometimes weeks at a time.

Life there was minimalist and the conditions primitive on the 1,124 acres. But for the independent spirit, it was a miracle of beauty with comfort from the very close-knit community. Several great Irish writers came from there, preserving old Irish tales in the original language as well as writing their memoirs of life on the island. One could climb to the high rocky ridge (1,135 ft) and see the world from a 360-degree perspective, as long as he wasn’t blown off by the North Atlantic wind.

When we visited, although no one lived on the island, someone must have been tending the animals regularly, and I understand you could get permission to camp there. Since then, the government has taken over and there are now indoor accommodations for visitors, although there is still no electricity. Five of the cottages have been restored and can be rented. According to the website, candles and head torches are provided.

I know I’m no spring chicken anymore, but I still have this fantasy of living there for a year, or maybe a season. Even summer can be pretty rough there. But in my mind, I can hear the story-telling around the kitchen fire, the fiddles and tin whistles accompanying the local singers. Life there was hard, but the echoes of memories are magical.