We had no court, no doctor, no nurse and no priest, but we didn’t need them, because we had the best community you could imagine.“įor those interested in the Blasket Islands, the Great Blasket Centre in Dunquin offers a rich account of the islands’ history and culture. The view of the coastline from the boat is a sight to behold. The weather could not have been better, it was dry and the sun shone. He also released his memoir, “From The Great Blasket To America – The Last Memoir by an Islander,” the first English-language addition to the Blasket Islanders’ rich literary history.Īt the time he told IrishCentral, „It’s the most beautiful place on Earth, but the best thing about it was the people. This trip to the Great Blasket Island started out from Dingle Harbour and catching glimpses of Fungi as we sailed out from Dingle on the Peig Sayers speedboat in August 2014. These now abandoned islands inspired the celebrated literary works. Micheal O Cearna (Michael Carney), then 93 and the oldest surviving Blasket Islander, made the journey from his home in Springfield, Massachusetts to mark the occasion. A trip to the Blasket Islands off the southwest coast of Ireland, is a unique experience. The anniversary of the evacuation was marked two years ago as part of The Gathering. They can return to the island in good weather to look after their sheep.” They realized that there was no future for them on the Blasket. They were waiting on the shore with their furniture and belongings, but the waves were so dangerous that they had to leave everything except for a chair and two boxes behind.Īn officer from the Irish Land Commission present for the evacuation, Dan O’Brien, told The Kerryman, “The islanders were all ready to depart. The remaining residents, from families by the names of Dunleavy, O’Sullivan, Guiheen and Keane, were to be moved to new homes – cottages at Dunquin on the Dingle Peninsula. “The Atlantic, which dominates the lives of the Blasket Island people, asserted its supremacy on Tuesday, the day appointed by the Irish Land Commission to have this community of twenty-two people and their furniture transferred over the Sound to four newly-built cottages at Dunquin with three acres of arable land attached.” The Great Blasket once had a thriving population of inhabitants but in January of 1954 the remaining OSullivan family abandoned the Island due to a child contracting. The Blasket Islanders – by then a population of only 22 – were cut off from communication or any emergency assistance from the mainland and facing increasingly extreme weather patterns.Ī Kerryman article from the day sums it up best: The Great Blasket Island the most westerly point in Europe is the largest Island of an archipelago of islands located 3 miles off the tip of the Dingle Peninsula. The 1953 evacuation, ordered by then-Taoiseach Eamon de Valera, was largely accepted as a necessity. 2015 Last of the Blasket Islanders were evacuated to mainland in 1953Īt its peak, Great Blasket Island had only some 175 residents, but their cultural output was immense, including important Irish language works such as „The Islander,“ by Thomas O’Crohan, „Twenty Years a-Growing,“ by Maurice O’Sullivan, and „Peig,“ by Peig Sayers.Ĭurrach approaching Dunquin Harbor from the Blasket Islands, 1960.

Peig blasket islands