Blacksod Pier is one of the most remote and exposed western headlands on the mainland of Ireland. On a sunny day this week, we travelled there, joining a small group of about 12 passengers for the thirty-minute crossing to the Iniskea islands.
The Iniskea islands are two islands (North and South islands), sitting off the Mullet’s Atlantic coast. Today, the islands are uninhabited, though for centuries, they were busy, populated islands.
Our boat journey out to the islands is bumpy - but fun. The two older children are thrilled to bounce across the waves, our youngest is less sure and holds on tight to his father's hand.
In the early Christian period, St Colmcille founded a monastery on Inishkea North. Three great mounds, known as the Baileys, still stand. Cross-slabs have also been uncovered, alongside a church, holy well and beehive huts. Both the North and South islands are dotted with shell middens that reach back to the Neolithic period.
As we get closer to the islands, we spot children (who have arrived on an earlier boat) already splashing in the waves on the soft beach. It is a confusing image at first - children in their brightly coloured swimming togs, sunshine and sand - behind them an array of abandoned stone cottages.
We disembark and try to find our bearings.
Today, we have landed on South Inishkea. After a quick drink of water, we decide to wander together through the ruins of cottages and the schoolhouse, planning to make our way eventually towards the narrow sound that divides the two islands.
History is everywhere here. Last night I had read that during mid mid-1800s the island population survived the famine better than most mainlanders, thanks to a more diverse diet. I explain this to the older children as we walk. "In fact", I explain, "by the end of the famine, the population of the island had actually grown!" The children patiently nod in my direction.
We peer into windows. And sit on the doorsteps. I wonder if the children will ask us, "But where did all the people go? ".
In October 1927, disaster struck the island when a sudden storm caught a group of the islanders who were out fishing at sea; ten people drowned, and only two returned. This loss was too great for the remaining islanders to bear, and they began to move inland.
By 1935, the islands were deserted, and families were resettled by the state at Glosh, a townland on the tip of the Mullet Peninsula - facing back towards the homes they had left.
Sitting on what was once a family's doorstep with our children ... I’m not too sure how it feels to be here. It is a privilege for sure - but there is a palpable sadness too. In the end the children never ask about what happened to the people who once lived here, and I decide to stop with my little history tour. Suddenly conscious of how little I really know about this place.
We get up and start to walk again. Our progress is slow over the uneven ground of tumbled-down walls and houses. Our naturally cautious two-year-old starts to question why we are trying to “go” somewhere anyway: he actually likes right where we are, he insists - The cows! The houses! The boats!
We stop for yet another snack and drink of water.
Ever since the islands were abandoned in the 1930s, the Iniskeas have become a haven for wildlife. Half of Ireland’s wintering barnacle geese come here. Grey seals sprawl across beaches. Botanists once hailed the Inishkea machair as among the finest in the country, but sadly, heavy grazing has taken its toll. We notice the small fenced squares, part of the Life on Machair project, testing what happens when livestock are excluded.
We pass the old schoolhouse where a herd of cows are nibbling at some campers tents. I wonder what it is like to stay here camping overnight. Admittedly, my first thought is - how would us two adults ever carry over enough food to keep these three hungry children fed for two days on an island?
Eventually, we decide to move down onto the sand - the ground here is easier for the two-year-old, and he has decided he is actually scared of the cows. On the beach, we find the skull and vertebrae of a dolphin, buried in the sand. We pick them up and examine them, and put them back as we found them.
Even the sunshine can not disguise how exposed these low-lying islands are: the houses all face east, backs turned to the Atlantic gales.
We make it to the island's northern edge at last and sit and look across the narrow channel that separates the north and south islands. The sea air has certainly sharpened our appetites. We eat the last of our supply of plums, and I have to concede: despite our best laid plans, our food supplies are now gone … and we have only been on the island three hours.
Back on our boat, Sean, our boat skipper, is chatting jovially across the water with fisherman in a neighbouring boat about their catch. Our boat is named “Kea Josh” - after his children, who are both on board working with him.
Sean explains that the fishermen across the way, like his family, are all direct descendants of the islanders. We chat about the machair fencing and how effective they may or may not be. It is clear that Sean, Kea and Josh are all so proud of Iniskea, they want to share it but are protective too, and wary of overexposure.
"It's busy today", Sean explains ", but come the winter, it will be only us out here again." He pauses, "That's my favourite time here".
Despite its remoteness, the Inishkea islands feel less cut off than I had imagined. As we sail back to the mainland, we look across to the north island, and east to Glosh and the Mullet peninsula. Then we look south towards Achill island, Duvilluan and Blackrock lighthouse - the outlines of all of these islands now so familiar it almost feels like they are waving back at us.
As the sun glitters on the water, Blacksod pier and our car (drinking water!) come back into view, I think about how earlier today, this pier had felt like the edge of the known world. Now, on our return, Blacksod feels like a buzzing metropolis.
Later on the way home in the car while the children sleep, we listen again to Fin Dwyer’s excellent podcast on the Iniskea Islands.
In it, he dismisses many of the myths and rumours about Iniskea — stories of pagan rites and pirates and the general romanticisation of island life. Such stories, he explains, really only serve to tell us much more about the outsiders who told them than about the islands themselves.
Words: Jo Anne Butler
Photography: Jo Anne Butler and Gearoid Muldowney
Notes:
Listen to Fin Dwyers Podcast on Iniskea
Learn more about the Iniskea Islands and Life on Machair Project here
Deeper read: Mayo's Lost Islands
Visit: We travelled to the Iniskea Islands with Belmullet Boat Charters