A lifetime of Islands: Island 381 - Tawin/Tamhain, County Galway

Tawin Island (Tamhain in Irish) is linked at its eastern end by a bridge to the neighbouring island of Tawin East. Tawin East is in turn linked by another bridge/causeway to the mainland of County Galway. Tawin Island is located about 5 miles to the south west of the town of Oranmore. The whole island is very flat and largely treeless, although there are a few trees close to the only row of houses on the island. One of the 14 or so dwellings on the island is an attractive thatched house. When I visited on a grey blustery morning in mid May 2017 the island was being grazed by cattle and sheep. I didn't see any human residents but I did meet a friendly dog.

The main body of the island is just over a mile from east to west and just over half a mile from north to south. However there is what looks from aerial photographs to be spit/salt marsh extending for almost a mile in a south easterly direction from the middle of the south coast of the island.

Sir Roger Casement was a human right activist and Irish nationalist. He was hanged by the British in 1916 for his involvement in the Easter Rising. He visited Tawin Island in 1904 in support of parents on the island who had withdrawn their children from the island's national school in protest that they would not be taught in the Irish language. The islanders raised enough money from sympathisers to their cause to build their own school. The building was used during the summer holidays as a Gaelic college.

Eamon de Valera spent three summers on Tawin Island as the Director of the Gaelic League's Summer School from 1911-13. He was later a commander during the Easter Rising of 1916, a political leader in the War of Independence and of the anti-Treaty opposition during the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). After leaving Sinn Féin in 1926, he founded the political party Fianna Fáil. He was head of the Irish government from 1932 to 1948, 1951 to 1954, and 1957 to 1959. In 1959 he resigned after being elected as President of Ireland. In the summer of 1912 Eamon de Valera met Sir Roger Casement for the first time on Tawin Island when Casement visited the island to see how the school was doing.