The Great Blasket was once home to 170 people, living in stone houses on a steep slope facing the mainland. Even into the middle of the last century their life could be described as medieval: they had no source of power but the burning of turf from the hill, no source of food but the sea and the animals they kept and the few crops that could be grown on such miserly land. There was fresh water from 20 springs and milk from the cows. The work was communal and money seldom changed hands.

Scholars came to examine this strange place, where the people spoke a form of Gaelic not heard elsewhere for centuries and gathered by firelight to hear stories passed down through millennia. The Great Blasket became famous in Ireland and the diaspora. Some people, including former Irish President Eamon De Valera, saw the community as a model for life in the new republic. The words of the best storytellers - Peig Sayers, Tomas O'Crohan, Maurice O'Sullivan - became best-selling books. Then it all went wrong.....

The island was abandoned...The story of its evacuation in 1953 was full of heroism and tragedy. The search for survivors took me to New England , where, remarkably, the island community had regrouped. The elderly men and women there had never lost the hunger for their old home, even though they were so far away and the village was in ruins.

It's difficult to imagine anyone living on these remote rocky island outposts. But Irish historians believe monks inhabited the Blaskets in the fifth and six centuries and that the Vikings used the islands as jumping-off points for raiding the Irish mainland in the ninth and 10th centuries. Later, the islands were home to several notable poets and writers of the Irish language

Dingle Bay Charters
Blasket Island Ferry

Take a fast (40 Minute) ferry from Dingle Marina to the Great Blasket Island.

Watch out for Fungie the dolphin at the entrance to Dingle Harbour, then sit back and soak in the scenery as you round Slea Head and approach the Blasket Island.www.dinglebaycharters.com