Islands of Ireland: Turkish sailors with outbreak of cholera on board buried their dead here

Many of Ireland's 'Turk Islands' mean 'island of the wild boar' but West Cork's Turk Island has three graves where sailors who died of cholera are buried

Turk Island, beside Bere Island County Cork, where Turkish sailors were buried after an outbreak of plague on their ship in pre-Famine times. Picture: Dan MacCarthy

There are several Turk Islands in Ireland but they have nothing to do with the huge country straddling Asia and Europe. Inishturk and Inish Turk Beg in County Mayo, and Inishturk South in County Galway all derive from the ‘island of the wild boar’.

There is another Turk Island, however, and this one does have a link to the country of Turkey. The tiny overgrown island lies just outside the mouth of Lawrence Cove on the eastern end of the enormous Bere Island, County Cork near the village of Rerrin.