Blasket’s great culture captured for posterity

A remote island outpost, renowned for its peace and captivating beauty, has been a magnet for photographers for well over a century.

Since American Alma Curtin took the earliest known images of the Great Blasket in 1892, countless thousands of shots have been captured by professional and amateur photographers alike.

There’s a mystique about the place, lying off the west Kerry coast, but the images which linger are of the people themselves, especially the weather-beaten faces of the islanders, who battled all their lives with the sea.