A lifetime of Islands: Island 363 - Inisheer/Inis Oírr, Aran Islands, County Galway

Inisheer (Inis Oírr in Irish) is the smallest and most south easterly of the three Aran Islands. It lies approximately 6 miles to the north west of the town of Doolin on the coast of County Clare. The island is 2 miles from east to west and just over 1.5 miles from north to south. The highest point on the island is 57 metres above sea level. The island is featured on the opening sequence of the TV series Father Ted as Craggy Island, although the programme was not actually filmed there.

Inisheer can be accessed by passenger ferry from Doolin or from the village of Rossaveel in County Galway. I stayed in Rossaveel and so travelled from there to Inisheer. The same ferry calls at Inishmaan first before travelling on to Inisheer. When I visited in May 2017 the day return ferry fare for an adult was €25. It is also possible to fly to Inisheer from Connemara Airport to the west of Galway City. The airstrip is on the north coast of the island.

Inisheer is one of the Irish speaking Gaeltacht areas of Ireland. This means that most signs and notices are only in Irish. The Ordnance Survey maps are also all in Irish, which isn't very helpful, considering that most of the people using them aren't likely to be Irish speakers. I spent quite a bit of my week's holiday in County Galway trying to guess what the road signs, labels on buildings and signposts meant.

Inisheer is very geared up for visitors. We were greeted by a long line of very assertive horse and trap owners trying to sell rides to tourists. I have to say it was a bit off putting. I visited on a sunny Sunday, so there were lots of other visitors and unusually quite a few of them ventured away from the village where we landed, so it was difficult to be alone for any length of time. It is also possible to hire bikes, although the island isn't flat and most of the roads run from the north coast towards the south coast but do not connect with each other. There isn't a coastal footpath around the whole island either. There are however a couple of waymarked looped (circular) walks.

There is a pub and a hotel on Inisheer and I found a tea room (Teach an Tae), which was good and the lady who runs it was friendly and came out and had a chat with me. Even though it was a hot sunny day everyone else was sitting inside for some reason. If you want to stay on the island, in addition to the hotel, there are some guesthouses.

The two things that are most memorable about the island are the large areas of karst landscape or limestone pavements and the small size of all the fields. I don't think I have ever been anywhere where the fields are as small as they are on the Aran Islands. I'm not sure if the reason for the fields being so small is that they act as windbreaks or because there are so many rocks on the island that it was a way of getting them off the fields, so that grass or crops could be grown. Maybe it is a combination of the two reasons. Not many of the fields on Inisheer were in use when I visited. A few fields had cattle in and I came across one horse (the others were all busy working pulling the traps). The soil must be very shallow on this limestone island. Some of the fields were 90% limestone pavement with a few blades of grass in between the cracks. It must have been hard to live by farming on these islands. Tourism isn't always a positive thing, but it must provide most of the islanders' incomes these days.

The main places of interest on the island are:

The wreck of the MV Plassy, which was a steam trawler launched in 1940 and renamed HMT Juliet in 1941. She was renamed Peterjon in 1947 when she was converted to a cargo ship. She was renamed Plassy in 1951 when she was acquired by the Limerick Steamship Company. In 1960 she ran aground on rocks off the east coast of Inisheer in a storm while carrying a cargo of whiskey, stained glass and yarn. The crew were all safely rescued by Inisheer islanders using a breeches buoy. A few weeks later another storm swept her onto the beach on the east coast of Inisheer and there she remains, still largely intact but very rusty. You can walk right up to and even into the wreck.
O'Brien's Castle - 15th century - ruined
St Enda's Holy Well - this is on the west coast of the island and I didn't have time to visit it.
Signal Tower built during the Napoleonic Wars c1804
Teampall Chaomháin or St Caomhán's Church. St Caomhán was a 6th century Irish saint but little is known about him. He may have been the brother of Kevin of Glendalough. The church, which may date from the 10th century is today below ground level because it was buried by shifting sand. St Caomhán's grave lies in a separate building to the north east of the church.
Lighthouse - this is situated on the south east corner of the island.
Cnoc Raithni - this is a burial mound dating back to the Bronze Age, which is located behind the beach on the north coast.
Cill na Seacht nIníon (Church of the Seven Daughters). This ruin is located about 50 metres to the west of the road to the lighthouse. I walked along the road but didn't notice any signs to it.
Cill Ghobnait (St Gobnait's Church). This ruined church, which dates back to the 9th-11th centuries depending on which source you believe, is located near the harbour.