My heart jolted when I saw the Blasket caretaker position advertised — it felt like a dare

Lesley Bond’s memoir is an ode to the island of which she was a devoted caretaker

I am standing in Dunquin, in Co Kerry, at first light, with Lesley Bond, looking out from a cliff top at the curved spine and sleeping face of the Blasket Islands before the light wakes them, and it feels, wistfully, as if I could just reach out my hand and touch them.

We had been planning a trip to the Great Island for the past month. Everything was in place. The storms that had been battering the coastline with a force that felt indifferent to our intentions had finally abated.