Valentia is one of my favourite islands. It lies just to the west of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry and can be accessed by car ferry from Renard Point to Knightstown or by a bridge from Portmagee. The bridge was opened in 1970. The island is 7 miles long by 3 miles wide.
Car Ferry at Knightstown
The name, which has nothing to do with Valencia in Spain, is a corruption of the name of the adjacent sound - Beal Inse. The old name for the island was Oilean Dairbhre, which means "island of the oak forest". The highest point on the island is Geokaun at 266 metres. The current population is around 650 people.
The main settlement is at Knightstown and there is a heritage centre there along with shops and cafes. In the 19th Century the island was owned by Trinity College, Dublin and the Fitzgerald family who were the Knights of Kerry. Knightstown is named after them. It has a planned layout and was designed by the Scottish architect Alexander Nimmo. Tourism is a major employer on Valentia.
Knightstown
Coffee shop at Knightstown
Sculptures in the small park at Knightstown
Church at Knightstown
Mosaic and sculpture in the churchyard
Stone picnic bench at Knightstown
The stone benches are cold to sit on for much of the year but at least they won't blow away in a storm!
Boats at Knightstown
Clocktower and weighbridge, Knightstown
Royal Valentia Hotel, Knightstown
Cable Station: Valentia was the eastern terminus for the first transatlantic telegraph from 1866-1965 and many of the houses in Knightstown were built for the people employed with it. Most of the staff were English.
Former cable station, Knightstown
Houses in Knightstown built for the Cable Station workers
Houses in Knightstown built for the Cable Station workers
Cable sculpture, Knightstown
Cable sculpture, Knightstown
In the 19th century there was a contrast between prosperous Knightstown and poorer Chapeltown in the centre of the island where most of the people were engaged in fishing and farming. Large quantities of mackerel were caught until 1930 when the stocks declined and the United States, who were the main customer, imposed import tariffs.
The RNLI Lifeboat Station on the island was opened in 1865 and is still operational but the Met Office's Eireann's Valentia Observatory, which is included in the UK Met Office's Shipping Forecast, is located at Cahersiveen on the mainland.
Lifeboat Station in Knightstown
Plaque on the Lifeboat Station
There is a working slate quarry at Geokaun above Chapeltown that has the Grotto of the Virgin Mary & St Brigid high up above its cavernous entrance. The quarry was operational from 1816-1884 and 1900-1911, although it was in decline after 1870, due in part to competition from Wales. It was reopened in 1998. The grotto was placed there in 1954. The slate, which is old red sandstone, was in demand for fish slabs, dairy shelving and water tanks, as well as roofing and paving. The House of Commons in London is roofed with Valentia slate and the Public Record Office in London had 25 miles of shelving made from it.
I walked out on a very misty morning to Bray Head on the south west end of the island where there is a ruined lookout tower and the cliffs are 240 metres above sea level.
In 1913 the estates of the Knights of Kerry and Trinity College Dublin on Valentia were taken over by the Congested Districts Board. Most of Glanleam House, which had been the residence of the Knights of Kerry on Valentia was demolished and the family moved to England. There is still a subtropical garden at Glanleam House, which is open to the public. Many rare southern hemisphere shrubs were planted at Glanleam House from the 1830s by Peter Fitzgerald, who was the 19th Knight of Kerry. Glanleam has the only sandy beach on Valentia.
Around 150 fossilised tetrapod (primitive vertebrate) tracks were discovered on the north coast of the island in 1993.
Lighthouse at Cromwell Point
- built in 1841 and automated in 1947
The Altazamuth Stone at Knightstown
This marks the location of the Altazamuth instrument that determined the precise longitude of Knightstown in 1862. The measurement was taken to determine the longitude of multiple locations along the latitude of 52 degrees north from Valentia to Omsk in Siberia. Telegraph equipment was connected to the telegraph office in Knightstown to synchronize the timing of astronomical observations at this location with simultaneous observations by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Maude Jane Delap who was born in 1866, moved to Valentia when she was 8 and lived there for the rest of her life. Her father was a vicar but she became a self-taught field biologist. She is known for her pioneering work in the field of jellyfish research and she was the first person to successfully breed jellyfish in captivity. She died in 1953. There is a plaque in the shape of a jellyfish to commemorate her life and work on Valentia.
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