The Islands of Ireland: In search of the other Garinish

This one, a 'tooth-shaped' island in Kerry, has a series of glens running from east to west divided by ridges of time-worn rock

Garinish, Co Kerry, near Parknasilla in the Kenmare River. Not to be confused with Garinish at Glengarriff, Co Cork.

The headline is a little misleading as it doesn’t tell the whole story. There are three other Garinish islands, in addition to the one mentioned here. There is the famous Garinish Island at Glengarriff in West Cork. It is famed for its subtropical and Italian gardens and Grecian temple.

There are two others: one very close to this one at Zetland pier in Bantry Bay. It is very small and has its own luscious vegetation and one holiday house. It is appended with the word ‘West’ to differentiate it from the one at Glengarriff. The last is at the end of the Beara peninsula on the north side where Garinish and two other small barren islands protect the pier at Garinish Bay.

‘Gar inish’ means ‘near island’ in Irish and all four are very close indeed to the shore. Mind you, if that were the sole reason for naming an island many others would fall into the category.

The house on this Garinish was built in 1865 by Edwin Wyndham-Quin, or in the British peerage system, the third Earl of Dunraven, who had bought it from local landowner James Bland in 1855. His son proceeded to develop the tropical gardens which were also being developed at this time on the nearby Rossdohan Island and the well-known Garinish at Glengarriff. The architect James Franklin Fuller was commissioned to design the house.

Dunraven hosted many visitors at Garinish, including the chief secretary of Ireland in the 1890s Gerald Balfour, and his wife Betty Balfour. The Kerryman reported “the distinguished pair” were accompanied by Lord Kenmare and Lord De Vecie on the trip.

The island was owned by the Browne family in the 1960s and 70s and was frequently opened up to garden enthusiasts. Shamus Browne later wrote an entry in In an Irish Garden of the ‘tooth-shaped island’. He described a series of glens running from east to west divided by ridges of time-worn rock.

‘The glens were filled with soil laboriously ferried from the mainland, and each one was planted with a rich selection of of trees and shrubs, a different genus forming the dominant group in each valley,’ he wrote.

Dan MacCarthy's series.

The plants were brought from the nearby Rossdohan, donated by Samuel Heard, others from Fota Island, but most came from the Daisy Hill Nursery in Co Down. The tropical vegetation was planted mainly between 1890 and 1910. The family also built the Catholic Church in Sneem.

At the walled garden near the house, Dunraven planted rose purple flowers of a Judas tree and the ‘vivid magenta’ of parrot’s bill (clianthus).

Near the house was a copse of Californian tree poppies with “gorgeous silky white flowers with crimson and gold stamens”. A considerable windbreak gave cover for New Zealand tree ferns.

A winding path from the house led to the palm garden where many Australian exotics could be found. Also in this area was a sapphire tower (Puya alpestris) which has flowers of a ‘unique metallic turquoise blue’. This garden is dominated by the chusan palm, he writes.

Next up, the low garden had silver-leafed daisy bushes from New Zealand. Also planted there was the dove tree ‘whose white handkerchief bracts flutter from the branches every May’.

The camphor tree, which in the far east is used for furniture, due to its its aromatic wood, dominates that section of the garden.

Nearby is an old lily pond, filled with rich soil, providing a fine bog garden. ‘Hostas and skunk cabbage propagate profusely in this hospitable mire,” wrote Browne.

“Many of the finest and most interesting plants in our collection come from the southern hemisphere. They revel in the moist and mild climate of Kerry, but of course would not thrive here without the windbreaks.”

Thanks to the shelter, Garinish has a tree fern walk composed of ancient specimens of Dicksonia antarctica from Australasia, ‘some growing straight, others bowed and bent with age’. From South America the garden boasts a Podocarpus salignus with dark olive green leaves. And the camelia garden path leads to the magnolia garden which was begun in 1964.

Today, the island is owned by an international businessman.
How to get there: Garnish is privately owned.
Other: In an Irish garden: edited by Sybil Connolly and Helen Dillon, Longmeadow Press