Islands of Ireland: Rotten to the core

Rotten by name but certainly not by nature. A former lighthousekeeper on this island, Michael Moore, described this island as “a lovely place”. Rotten Island is a mere sliver of an island at the mouth of Killybegs Harbour in Co Donegal. Were it not for the lighthouse established there by the doyen of lighthouse construction, George Halpin Sr, in 1832, it would probably have been

disregarded as being an island in the first place. Over time the 150m by 50m rock came to be known as Rotten Island, a corruption of Naomh Rotain, who is thought to have had a hermitage on the barren granite. A miniature Skellig. In Irish it is an tOileán Bréan or Foul Island which probably followed the naming after the saint.