Islands of Ireland: Vicious currents, no easy landing spot - but Illaunbrock makes a great lookout

The name means 'Badger Island' but it's a mystery if badgers ever lived here — the name might come from the black and white rock on the island

Illaunbrock, County Cork, between Cape Clear and Sherkin islands

There is no landing place of any description on this island: no strand on which to drift in, no ledge on which to alight, no manmade object of any description... and last but not least, no person to advise you where you might pull in your craft amid turbulent waves.

In short, Illaunbrock, located between Cape Clear Island and Sherkin in County Cork, is the very definition of inhospitable. Add into the above picture a place usually associated with heaving seas and howling winds and possessed of currents so vicious that they would make Homer's fabled Scylla and Charybdis look like a benign force, and you get the picture of a truly inhospitable place. This area is called the Gascannane Sound and it has seen several fatalities over the years. That French-sounding name derives from Gaisceanán, ‘noisy place’ — which scarcely does it justice.