Exploring the Blasket Islands, County Kerry
Here is the second MountainViews epic island odyssey! This time we bagged three peaks in the beautiful Blasket Islands off the Kerry Coast. The peaks on Inis na Bró and Inis Tuaisceart had not been previously climbed by any of the MountainView members. The third, An Cro Mór on the famous An Blascoad Mór (Great Blasket), is the best known of the three. The weather behaved itself and the craic was mighty. Thanks to Conor Murphy for organising such an impeccably choreographed trip, and to Mick Sheenan of the Marine Tours.ie for a very entertaining day out.
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Blasket Islands - Ireland
Stunning drone footage of The Great Blasket Island off the South West coast of the Dingle Peninsula..
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Dingle Peninsula Slea Head and the Blasket Islands County Kerry Ireland | Cruise with Bruce
Dingle Peninsula, Slea Head and the Blasket Islands in County Kerry Ireland
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This video was shot on the renowned Dingle Peninsula, once described by the National Geographic Magazine as the most beautiful place on earth. It lies north west of Killarney and is best known of its spectacular seascapes and landscapes. On the most westerly tip of the peninsula is a the scenic drive to Slea Head. The Blasket Centre is the heritage centre and museum honoring the people who lived on the Blasket Islands until the Winter storms of 1953 when they ran out of food. After generations of living in the same houses the survivors left the island to live on the mainland. At the Louis Mulcahy Pottery Shop you can eat lunch and try your hand at throwing a pot.
This video was shot by Bruce Oliver a Luxury Travel Adviser with Cruise with Bruce Enterprises.
Great Blasket Island, Co. Kerry
The beautiful Great Blasket Island, Co. Kerry © AirCam Ireland | aircamireland.ie
Blasket Islands, Co. Kerry, Ireland
YnysVideo: 30 seconds of Ireland
The Blasket Islands Kerry Ireland
Couple inundated with applications for Blasket Islands jobs
An advert for two summer jobs on the Great Blasket Island has attracted a staggering 23,000 applications.
The Dingle couple, who operate a café along with cottage accommodation on the Co Kerry island, say they have been completely overwhelmed by the response.
Alice Hayes and her partner Billy O'Connor posted the advert on social media just ten days ago.
They are seeking two people to run the small café and 3 cottages from April to October. The successful candidates will stay on the uninhabited island. It’s been unbelievable. We were worried we wouldn’t get anyone. We had a lot of interest last week but in the last few days it’s been mad.
We’ve received applications from places like Iran, Argentina, Finland, Mexico, everywhere really. Our email is in meltdown and our phones are just pinging constantly, Ms Hayes said.
Mr O’Connor said many of the applicants seem to be attracted by the remote nature of the island and its natural beauty.
I suppose people just want to disconnect from the rush of everyday life and get off the grid. Things are really basic out there. There's no electricity. Cooking is done on gas cookers. Light is provided by candles, heating is a solid fuel stove. There are no creature comforts, no hot showers.
We had a lovely couple working there last year, Leslie and Gordon. They were fantastic and had a genuine appreciation and love for the place. They really took to it.
News of the job advertisement has travelled far and wide on social media and in the last couple of days the island opportunity has been featured on major news and travel outlets such as CNN, CBS, Lonely Planet and Fox News.
We’ve had coverage in the most unlikeliest places. We’ve had applications in languages we can’t even recognise.
We’ve also received some very moving personal stories. We had a lovely application from a 79-year-old and 83-year-old couple, Ms Hayes said.
The Dingle couple have responded to in and around 1,000 applicants so far, but they said it will be impossible to get through every email.
They hope to meet a number of applicants over the coming weeks before making a final decision.
One of the three cottages we have belonged to Peig Sayers, the great storyteller.
It’s important that the people working there understand and appreciate the island’s rich literary heritage and history, Mr O’Connor said.
Visiting The Great Blasket Island
A safety guide for visitors
Kerry Gathering TV, Going Home - A Return To The Blaskets, The Kerry Gathering.
In this 'Culture' special Kerry Gathering TV captured the return from Springfield, Massachusetts of Mike Carney- the last surviving former inhabitant of the Blasket Islands.
Directed by Stephen Kavanagh & John McCarthy.
Produced by Rachel Stack.
Edited by John McCarthy & Stephen Kavanagh.
Special Thanks to Dara Jauch for translation.
Directors of Photography: John McCarthy & Stephen Kavanagh.
Sound Mixers: Stephen Kavanagh & John McCarthy.
Special Mention to Mike Carney and his extended family for their cooperation.
Also thank you to Seán Mac an tSíthigh for his contribution.
Kerry County Council in association with FÁS National Digital Skills Centre & the Department of Social Protection.
Kerry Gathering Production Team: Rachel Stack-Brigid Vinnell-John McCarthy-Eamonn Campbell-Stephen Kavanagh.
Special Thanks to Mentors: Paul Dolan & Brian Nolan - FÁS Television & Video Production Unit, Tralee, co. Kerry.
Blasket Storm (Dingle, Ireland)
Storm rolling in off the North Atlantic Ocean, making landfall off the Blasket Islands, Dingle, Ireland (October 2002).
Exploring Puffin and Scarriff Islands, County Kerry, Ireland
MountainViews expedition to climb two offshore summits on Puffin Island and Scarriff Island in Ireland's Co. Kerry. Many thanks to BirdWatch Ireland for permission to land on Puffin Island, which is a nature reserve. We enjoyed seeing hundreds of Atlantic Puffin, some Manx Shearwater and hearing a Storm Petrel hidden in a wall crevice. And we climbed 2 summits unrecorded as surmounted on MountainViews.ie!!
Blasket People
Living craft, living tradition
THE BLASKET ISLANDS CO KERRY-SUNSET
Filmed & edited by Trevor Read Produced with CyberLink PowerDirector 13
Oileán Eile
1984 RTÉ documentary about the Blasket Islands, the work of linguists and anthropologists there in the early 20th c., and the autobiographical literature produced by islanders such as Tomás Ó Criomhthain & Peig Sayers.
This Island Business BBC Documentary of Simon Fancis' parents on the Blasket Island PART ONE
This is a documentary made by the BBC in 1978. The film shows Lesley and Roger Hambrook as they bring up a child on a very remote island, at the very edge of western Europe. They talk about the values of a simple, slow existence in touch with nature, and their love of this beautiful island where they came to live for four years.
Part Two is available here:
The Great Blasket Island Documentary | Walking Around Ireland - Day 28
Why the Great Blasket Island was Evacuated
I took this photo yesterday morning on my way back down to the waiting boat. It’s the National School on the island from the same spot as the photograph I am holding.
Before I continue walking around Ireland, I wanted to explain something...
The Great Blasket Island was evacuated in 1954 after being inhabited for centuries by a small but close-knit Irish speaking population who followed a traditional way of life involving farming, fishing, weaving.
Although the population was close to 200 people at one time, this number diminished rapidly in the early 1900’s. It was due to decline and depopulation that the remaining twenty two islanders were forced to evacuate the island.
But why?
While some moved to cities on the mainland, in most instances, the young had emigrated to America.
You see, it cost £6 to catch the ferry from Cobh to New York and the youth were terribly excited by the prospect of jobs, and a much more glamorous or less demanding way of life.
Interestingly, it was easier for islanders to travel to New York than Dublin and the Americas seemed closer at that time.
Most often, the eldest female would go to work in Dingle or nearby cities and save up this £6 to pay for the boat. Once settled in America, they would work and send home the passage money to their siblings who could then follow in their footsteps.
In the end, the youth had left the Great Blasket and the remaining islanders were unable to sustain the harsh requirements of living in such a remote environment. After an emergency message was sent to the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera gave the order to evacuate the remaining islanders.
It was a common theme in Ireland, emigration, and awfully sad for the Great Blasket. Unlike today, this youth would never have the opportunity to come home and they would also live on with the knowledge that their “home” and that incredibly primitive way of life, no longer existed.
#GreatBlasketIsland #GreatBlasket #Ireland #Irish #Irishemigration #Irishdaily #Vanishingireland #oldireland #Ancientireland #Irishhistory #Irishculture
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About the Walk - I am hiking from Dublin to the Great Blasket Islands in Co. Kerry. I will be sleeping in a tent and it will take approx 30 days to complete the 600km+ journey. Most of this trail is known as “Coast to Coast” but I have always had a fascination and urge to pitch my tent on the Great Blasket Island which is why I will head north upon reaching Killarney.
And in case you might be asking yourself, I am walking around Ireland because I really enjoy walking.
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The Last Islandman returns to his birthplace, the Great Blasket
The abandoned Great Blasket Island off the west coast of Ireland holds a special place in the heart of 92-year-old Dr Mike Carney who was born there. The Telegraph goes with him as he visits his birthplace for the last time.
I don't know if I will be able to make it, says Mike Carney, looking out across a wild stretch of water to the place where he was born 92 years ago. I would like to put my feet down there one more time, but I wonder, is it possible?
Frankly, it seems crazy to try. The Great Blasket is famous throughout the world as a place where a remarkable community once lived, but it is remote, empty and inaccessible for most of the year.
We are in the far west of Ireland and the weather is turning bad, making the ground treacherous underfoot. Dr Carney walks with a shuffle and wears a brace for his back.
He is standing on the headland, looking out at the Blasket Sound. Under those waves there are many wrecks.
To get to the island, the old man will have to negotiate a wet quayside, a rubber dinghy, a sharp climb up into a converted fishing boat and an hour's journey by sea, buffeted by the Atlantic waves. Then he will face the dinghy again and the derelict island slipway, slick with seaweed, leading to a steep rock path as slippery as ice. Yet he says: I have the determination within me to do this.
He has come a long way already to reach this point; more than three thousand miles from his retirement home in Massachusetts, then down the coast of Ireland from the airport to the far tip of the Dingle Peninsula, a finger of land that points back west.
I can't get the island out of my mind, says Dr Carney, with the strong accent of a man who grew up speaking only Gaelic and who has never let the language go.
I dream about the island at night. I dream about the way it was when we were young.
The Great Blasket island was abandoned 60 years ago, as the result of a tragedy that had broken the hearts of the Carney family and their fellow islanders. The evacuation took place on 17 November 1953. Nobody has lived there permanently since. The houses are ruins. So what is calling Mike Carney now? Why is he risking his life to get back?
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Great Blasket Island - Dingle, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland
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Great Blasket Island Dingle
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- ... So at 1230 we met at e marina and got on a boat headed for he Great Blasket Island ...
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- Dunquin, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland
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- Us on the Great Blasket Island by Marcusgarfunkel from a blog titled The Great Blasket Island
- Great Blasket Island by Marcusgarfunkel from a blog titled The Great Blasket Island
The Blasket Island
Visit to the Blasket Island in July 2009
Live Storytelling: Batt and Maura Burns-The Blasket Islands
Live! from Ireland's Hills of Kerry: Irish Tales & Music.
Batt Burns is a master of the ancient art of the seanachie (storyteller) first experienced from his grandfather in the Hills of County Kerry. Batt helps to preserve that heritage with haunting accounts of ghosts, great adventure stories, and witty jokes, as author, teacher and performer.
Maura Burns plays traditional music on the concertina, learned from her mother a well-known exponent of the West Limerick style, and as a member of the O'Dwyer family of traditional musicians from Ardgroom in the Beara Peninsula, County Cork.
Batt and Maura just performed at Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage (see their archived performance online), and Batt's new book, The King with Horse's Ears, won The Storytelling World Award 2010 for the best collection of folktales for young readers. battburns.com
Free, live storytelling event filmed on April 29, 2010.
This live performance is produced and hosted by Todd DeGarmo, founding director of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, made possible in part by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts – Folk Arts Program, a state agency.