Islands of Ireland: Tears when last resident left this heather-covered Donegal island
Islands of Ireland: Channel marker at NW end of Inishcoo Island. Picture: geograph.org.uk Joseph Mischyshyn/Creative Commons
Inishcoo is one of the myriad islands between Arran Mór and Burtonport halfway up the west coast of County Donegal.
It is flanked to the west by Eighter Island (to which it is linked by a footbridge), to the south by Rutland Island, and the east by Edernishfree, with several other very small islands dotted around. It is characterised by rocky terrain and an abundance of heather and possesses a charming little lough all of its own.
The island is part of the distinctive Donegal region known as The Rosses which stretches from Gweedore to Glenties. The bulk of the island’s population lived on the south of the island and reached a peak in 1867 at 47 people.
The island is unpopulated today save for holiday visitors. A very fast flow of water runs between the islands there and the channel is also the route for the Arranmore ferry as it sails back and forth between the huge island and Burtonport.
It is always a poignant moment, and usually painful, when the very last inhabitant of an island leaves. The final bond between people and place is ruptured forever.
Inishark in County Galway drew national attention when the last residents left in 1960, and the Blasket Islands too, of course, when their final inhabitants left in 1954 for a new life on the mainland. Inishcoo’s final departure did not involve as many participants as those two islands but was nonetheless moving.
In an article headlined ‘nature wins battle for Inishcoo’ The Belfast Newsletter described on December 15, 1965, how the island’s last resident Charles O’Donnell departed his home the day before. “This is the only home I have ever known,” he said. The newspaper stated that tears were running down his face as he left his home of 80 years.
The island had been inhabited for 300 years, the paper reported, with islanders eking out a precarious living from the rough pasture and augmenting their income by fishing. And for the previous 200 years the O’Donnells were kings of the four-square-mile island.
However, when the hardship of living on the island became too much for them, the remaining O’Donnells, comprising three men and two women, knew they had to depart. Charles was the last to leave.
Even though Burtonport was just under 1km from the island the difficulty of remaining proved too much. The family secured accommodation in a disused police station in the fishing village.
The paper signed off by saying that the only sign of activity after they had left was a blinking red light warning ships of dangerous rocks.
The standout feature on the island is the 18th-century Inishcoo House with its Georgian features. The three-storey house was occupied by one Robert Corbett and his family at that time.
Corbett was the agent for the MP for the Killybegs area, William Burton Conyngham, whose social projects led to the construction of many buildings on Rutland Island at a time when the herring industry was thriving. The house is now let out to visitors.
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— Emma Cownie Artist (@SwanseaArtist) August 1, 2020
Following on from the successful Conyngham period when the fishing industry fell into decline by 1793 for “some mysterious reason” there was a renaissance period. An attempt to revive the fishing industry was made by the Congested Districts Board in 1890 utilising some of the buildings Conyngham had built a century before.
A fishing plant was established with a building for curing mackerel and herring with “bumper years up to 1911”. However, one day the fish vanished. A newspaper report suggested when “foreign power-driven boats swept the market from the islanders’ sailing boats”. Plus ça change.
Inishcoo was an important link in the chain after electricity was provided to the 1,300 inhabitants of Arranmore in 1956 when overhead cables crossed over from the mainland.
The island translates as the Island of the Hound (Inis Cú) and has seen many versions of its name until the latter gained popular usage in 1835. Prior to that, Inishconga, Innischchoy, Inishrong, Inishruoge and others prevailed.
: Inquire at Burtonport pier or kayak from there.
: logainm.ie; edited by Martin Sheppard, Matador; Irish Press, 06/09/63
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