Great Blasket vulnerable to invasion

Donal Hickey on protecting wildlife on the Blaskets.

WHEN people talk about the Great Blasket Island, it is usually about its literary history, that such a small outpost, three miles out in the Atlantic, could produce so many writers and storytellers.

Today, 55 years after its last human inhabitants abandoned the Great Blasket, there remains little tangible evidence of its literary tradition, apart from the diminishing ruins of some of the writers’ houses.

The islanders’ way of life has also vanished, but is remembered, recorded, and exhibited at an interpretive centre, Ionad an Bhlascaod, which is worth a visit on the mainland, in nearby Dunquin. The centre could be described as a museum of Blasket life, fadó, fadó.

In terms of nature, the Great Blasket itself is very much alive and continues to be a notable repository of wildlife, especially seabirds such as the Manx shearwater and the storm petrel. The island is a Special Protection Area, under both the bird and the habitat EU directives.

Throughout the pages of the Blasket books are references to the islanders’ everyday contact with nature. In The Islandman, Tomás Ó Criomhtháin recalled his first encounter with a seal on a day he was out collecting seaweed: “After a bit, I heard a hideous snore behind me, a queer sort of snoring that frightened me out of my wits, for there was nobody near me and nobody coming towards me and there wasn’t much light in the morning yet… I swung round in a jiffy to where I heard them (snores) coming from and what should I see but a huge, great mottled seal, with his head in the air and the rest of his body stretched out on the sand. My heart leapt, though not for fear of the seal, for I knew that he could not do me any harm as long as I kept away from him and let him be.”

Nowadays, the Great Basket gets as much attention for its wildlife as for its literary history, as was evident at a recent planning hearing into a controversial proposal to build a café there.

At the hearing, some objectors to the café raised fears of rats getting onto the island. Since rats would be unable to swim over, you might wonder how they’d be expected to reach the Great Blasket? Very simply, they could get on boats bringing in building materials and provisions, according to the objectors.

Once there, rats could start to breed and their growing numbers would, very soon, wreak havoc on the ground-nesting seabirds, so the argument went.

Since the planning hearing, there are reports that the island has had an even more vicious invader — mink. People working on the island reported seeing at least two mink, one of which they killed. Mink are good swimmers, but hardly good enough to swim three miles. How they reached the island is a mystery.

BirdWatch Ireland senior conservation and policy officer, Siobhan Egan, has expressed serious concern about the likelihood of rats arriving on the island. She claimed there was a considerable risk of invasive species coming in with building materials.

According to Ms Egan, seabirds on the Great Blasket are as valuable to many visitors as the island’s cultural significance. She warned the Manx shearwater is at particular risk, pointing out that, with more than 3,500 of them, the Great Blasket has one of the largest colonies in the country.

The Great Blasket has been described as one of a cluster of eight large islands, in south-west Kerry, that form a world important “supercolony” for Manx shearwaters and storm petrels. Other species there include puffins, chough, kittiwake, and fulmar.

Ms Egan said failure to safeguard the birds risked breaches of EU legislation.

Birds of a different feather, meanwhile, are coming under attack in Co Clare. Up to 400 ducks have, reportedly, been killed since an ecology park opened in Lissycasey, five years ago.

Pine martens, a protected species under the Wildlife Act, 1976, and mink are being blamed, according to a presentation on biodiversity to Clare County Council.

There have been similar reports from other wildlife parks about the pine marten, and Clare councilor, PJ Kelly, has called for a review of its status as a protected species.

He said he was tired of wildlife enthusiasts, who were all for protecting one species while allowing for the destruction of another. “We have to have a balance. Kids enjoy looking at ducks more than they do looking at pine martens,” he was quoted as saying in The Clare Champion.

Mr Kelly predicted imminent doom for some pheasants about to be introduced to the ecology park.