Dernish in touch with the past

The past can be a lot closer than we imagine. When jewellery designer Martina Hamilton visited Dernish Island in Co Sligo a few years ago to visit the home of her forebears she can’t have expected to have found any remnants of her past, apart from the farmhouse they lived in, writes Dan MacCarthy

The island was the home of her great, great, great, great grandmother Anne Gillan. Standing outside the ruin of the Gillan farmhouse for the making of a video, Martina traced her finger along the wall and in so doing she inadvertently found the name of her forebear indented into the stonework - G.i.l.l.a.n.