Islands of Ireland: Wherroon Island — rough reefs and a drowning tragedy

Despite a high tide completely covering this island, people went here to gather seaweed, but rough seas prevented locals from collecting the women working here and they were drowned

Islands of Ireland: Casadh Na Taoide — an epic cultural journey connecting five offshore islands and which goes past Wherroon Island. Picture: Michael McLaughlin

It is a name not based in reality and is of the sort which was mined by Brian Friel in his play Translations for the rich ridiculousness English cartographers made of Irish placenames. Wherroon is an island in Connemara that evokes zilch but, reminds one of similar invented words for people or places: Houyhnhnms in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels for an exotic race of intelligent horses springs to mind.

The genesis of Wherroon is the Irish from which it is derived of course, Na Foiriúin, whose meaning is itself evasive. The name appears again and again in Connemara Irish. The late Tim Robinson produced a very informative map of Connemara which pinpoints the placenames and the locations where they pop up.