Islands of Ireland: Success... I managed to find the tiny church on Parsons Island

This island's on Galway's Lough Cutra — Loch Cútra in Irish, it's named after a Firbolg who mythically did battle with another ancient tribe, the Tuatha Dé Danann

Parsons Island (back left), Lough Cutra, County Galway. Picture: Dan MacCarthy

The map didn’t lie. There it was in black and white. On a three-acre island on a small lake just over the border from County Clare was the target of this week’s adventure: A ruined church whose origins, like many others scattered on remote islands around the country, were apparently lost in the mists of time. Some of these churches were devoted to well-known saints (Colm Cille, Finian) while the dedications to others in the saint firmament were less known, or not known at all.

The lake in question is Lough Cutra, one of many lakes in the limestone escarpments of southern Galway and east Clare. And many of them have islands lurking among the occasionally homogenous landscape: duly noted for the kayaking diary. A historic passage described the lough as being “well-wooded islands, with an abundance of pike, trout, perch, and eels”.