The Islands of Ireland: Message from Moynish More

This relatively large island in Clew Bay, Co Mayo, is the westernmost in this fascinating bay. It was the first island that shipping bound for the town of Westport would have passed.

It is best seen from atop Croagh Patrick. Only then can you fully appreciate the result of the retreating glacial field after the last ice age around 10,000 years ago that deposited these islands like bread rolls on a kitchen table. It is an extraordinary sight.

Moynish More lies just 400m offshore on the northside of the bay near the beautiful village of Mulranny which is a stopping-off point on the Great Western Greenway. The island’s nearest neighbours are within about 1km and roughly of equal size — Inishcooa, Inishkeel, Inisherkin.

Moynish More is derived from the Irish, Maínis Mór, probably related to someone’s name and has a sliver of a near namesake in Moynish Beg. At an elevation of 37m it is not going to attract any mountain baggers as most of the desired hills in the Arderin classification are 500m or above. However, it does attract a few island baggers, if such a term exists.

However, there are no ferry services and no pier there so landing is more challenging.

Moynish More ranks as the 11th highest Clew Bay Island after the comparatively enormous Clare Island in the outer bay at 462m. There are reputedly 365 islands in Clew Bay which seems an extravagant number but if tides are very low some previously covered islands or shingle banks can be exposed and these are counted to reach the magical 365.

So that number is a working guide as well as a romanticisation along the lines of Carbery’s Hundred Isles in Roaringwater Bay, West Cork. From the main road near Mulranny, Moynish More appears fairly low so it gives you an idea of the flatness of all the islands that about 350 of them are lower than Moynish More.

In terms of size, it is sixth, ranking behind Clare Island, Collan More, Clynish, Island More and Rosmore, and possesses 77 acres of pretty fertile land. Not surprisingly, it had one of the largest populations in Clew Bay.

The population of the Clew Bay islands declined rapidly during and after the Famine. Prior to this the population had peaked in 1841 at 99. It fell to just six, 20 years later and to four in 1881.

One of the families whose genealogy has been traced is that of the Grehans. They eked out a living from farming and fishing, James Grehan was born in 1841 on the island to Thady Grehan and Ellen Moran. His siblings were Bridgie, Dominic, Michael, John, Mary and Patrick.

He married an Anne Murray and they in turn had another large family — Mariah, Patrick, Timothy, Dominick, James, Anne and Beatrice. The family was one of those to leave in the 1870s and they settled in Cushlecka, Co Mayo.

The ruins of the houses are still visible today though it is hard to imagine how 99 people lived there. The few derelict houses are all clustered around the south of the island where a row of trees sits among them.

The ruins of coastguard cottages are also extant here. These were part of a network of 2,000 such stations built around the coast from 1822.

“Their duties included boarding vessels in search of contraband, collecting excise duty and suppressing illicit distilling (of poitin) and assisting the constabulary in localities, which were regarded as inaccessible,” writes mayo-ireland.ie.

The island is still used for sheep and cattle grazing and fine stone walls mark off long fields. Nowadays the most regular visitors to Moynish More are Canadian barnacle geese. Only about six of the islands of Clew Bay are now populated where one time dozens were populated and teemed with life. Gerardine Cusack wrote in Croagh

Patrick and the Islands of Clew Bay:

It was always a pleasure for us children to visit islands where we had friends.

How to get there: Clew Bay tours: thereek.com; westportcruises.com; www. irelandwestseakayaking.com; Tours can be arranged via www.mulrannyparkhotel.ie

Other: Michael Cusack: Croagh Patrick and the Islands of Clew Bay. www.mayo-ireland.ie