Islands of Ireland: Voyage along our shortest river to Bernard’s Island

Lough Gill is famous for Yeats’s evocative and transcendent masterpiece ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’

Graham Robertson of Adventure Gently on the Garavogue River, Co Sligo near Bernard’s Island.

Lough Gill, or the Bright Lake, is the lake that keeps on giving. Several of our large lakes have many islands but few can be as compelling as Lough Gill (especially for island hunters). It is famous of course for Yeats’s evocative and transcendent masterpiece ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’. 

The poem was penned after his imaginary sojourn on the tiny island in the eastern end of the lake which is in Co Leitrim (the bulk of the lake is in Co Sligo). Imaginary, as some have claimed that it was Church Island on the other side of the lake where Yeats wanted to plant his nine bean rows and have a hive for the honey bee and live alone in the bee-loud glade.