Protestant plan for Blasket islanders

EFFORTS to convert the Irish-speaking residents of the Great Blasket Island to Protestantism will be among the subjects to be discussed at the annual Blasket Commemoration, in Dunquin, Co Kerry, this weekend.

Matters of Faith on the Great Blasket is the theme for the colloquium at which the religious structures and folk beliefs of the wider community in west Kerry will also be debated.

There is expected to be much interest in what speakers have to say about a pre-Famine Protestant proselytising drive. Two separate Christian denominations were active on the Great Blasket during the second half of the 19th century.