Islands of Ireland: Gulls, rabbits — and a blowhole — on Ballycotton Island Small

The blowhole is evocatively called Thunder Hole or Poll na Chaora and Poll na Caoin (Hole of the Sheep)

Islands of Ireland: Blowhole at Ballycotton Island Small, County Cork. Picture: Dan MacCarthy

Save for a quartet of cormorants drying their wings above a surging sea and the presence of a nosy kayaker, this sizeable island, which is not renowned for receiving visitors, is empty for this visit on a beautiful spring morning.

Ballycotton Island Small, and we will resist the temptation to call it BIS, is an island vastly overshadowed by its near namesake. Where Ballycotton Island has a stunning lighthouse, (a rare black design to differentiate it from the Capel Island beacon a few kilometres to the east when it was constructed), and an aspect beloved of photographers from the vantage at Garryvoe Beach, poor old Ballycotton Island Small would seem to have nothing going for it.