Islands of Ireland: Keeragh Islands often a refuge for sailors shipwrecked by storms

Dan MacCarthy explores the Keeragh Islands, Co Wexford

The memorial to the nine crew of the Helen Blake lifeboat on the Keeragh islands, Co Wexford. Picture: Dan MacCarthy

Overshadowed by their more illustrious neighbours, the Keeragh Islands in Co. Wexford also have an interesting tale to tell and are also decorated with teeming bird colonies that mark them as interesting in their own right. 

The neighbours are the Saltee Islands: Greater, with its cacophonous gannetry and resident king (of the Neale family), and Lesser with its association to Henry Grattan (the owner is the last living descendant of the 18th-century parliamentarian).