Oileánn Blascaod Mór (Great Blasket Island).

The Blasket islands are a group of small islands lying off the coast of Co. Kerry, Ireland. They are uninhabited nowadays, the last islanders having been evacuated in 1953 from their last remaining outpost on the largest island of the group, Great Blasket, or Oileánn Blascaod Mór, as it was known to its natives, who spoke only Irish Gaelic.

Spangles of silver sunlight play
on the gun-metal waters of the bay
as we drive the narrow coast road
toward Slea Head and the Blaskets.
Fuchsia hedges whip by,their flowers
blood-beads on the brow of Christ.

To our left, across the iron waves,
the humped hills of the Ring rise
above mist-curtained ocean and,
just discernable on the distant
edge of the world, the gaunt
fastness of Skellig Michael.

Everywhere in this time-stopped land,
ghosts and revenants beckon: whispers
from the dim past can be heard.
Whispers--and sometimes shouts, as when
we round the Head and hear
the Blasket Islands' sullen roar.

It was the roar of impact--a hammer-blow
of force striking the taut surface
of the imagination and leaving ripples
on the spirit. What primal upheaval
had created this archipelago--
this sanctuary of seabirds and seals?

Oh, we knew the stories, had read
the books--how the islanders
had abandoned the last settlement
in 1953--but the books had not
prepared us for the stark reality
and grim beauty of this final outpost.

A short ferry trip (passengers only)
across the Sound from the quay
at Dún Chaoin and we are
on the largest island, Great Blasket.
The wind keens, a desolate fugue,
over lichen-coated grey stone walls.

And yet, a thriving (or at least surviving)
community had once lived here,
snatching existence from a hostile land
and sea; the  repository of an ancient
tradition and language, immortalised
in literature and Celtic scholarship.

Home now to rutting seals, raucous gulls
and multiplying rabbits; a wilderness
of savage storms and treacherous seas
in winter; a desolate paradise
in other seasons. This island, this symbol
of an Ireland blurred by time and circumstance.