The Islands of Ireland: Coney’s monument to paradise in Clare

Dan MacCarthy, in his weekly series, visits a monument, now without a plaque, erected by the father of Captain John Foster Fitzgerald, killed in a cavalry charge in the Punjab, India in 1848.

The monument to Captain John Forster Fitzgerald at summit of Coney Island. Forster Fitzgerald was an officer in the British army and was killed in action in the Punjab, India, in 1848. Picture: Dan MacCarthy

Unlike most of the islands in the Fergus Estuary, Co Clare, Coney Island reveals some of its past immediately on approaching the pier. Where the other islands, such as Inishmacowney or O’Grady’s Island, are surrounded by dense tree cover, Coney Island presents an open aspect where the start of a street can be observed. It has a somewhat austere appearance reminiscent of a Scottish island with foreboding buildings near the shore.

The old school building is adjacent to the pier where children from some of the nearby islands were schooled. This is Inisdadrom School which takes its name from the Irish word for the island - the island of the two backs. Coney and Inisdadrom appear to be coterminous, but on some maps, the Irish name refers only to a peninsula jutting out from its mainland which is cut off at high tide.