Walking in island’s historic footsteps

LEAVING the harbour, our trailhead, we walk uphill, keeping right, ignoring the steep road going left. Soon, after passing the memorial to those drowned in the Fastnet Yacht Race in 1979, we pass a pub and a road going right, signposted “Loch Ioral”. We continue, passing various houses and another pub. In August, the roadside and fields are splashed with the vivid orange of flowering montbretia.
Now, sheltered South Harbour is ahead, with steep land rising on the other side. The water in the harbour below is blue and clear when the sun is shining. We pass what was once the Priest’s House, fronted by the Millennium Wall. Ignoring a left turning, we pass the Hostel, once home of the energetic Rev. Edward Spring, an Irish-speaking Kerryman whose mission was to convert the Roaringwater Bay islanders to the Reformed Church. During the Famine, 1845-48, the soup he dispensed in Protestant schools and churches kept many a body and soul together, albeit they returned to their own priests when the emergency passed.