Harry Kernoff, a radical artist, is still remembered in the streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’ in Dublin

Harry Kernoff (1900-1974) lived and worked at 13 Stamer Street, between Lennox Street and the South Circular Road in ‘Little Jerusalem’ in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford,2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my quick, overnight and all-too-short visit to Dublin this week, I spent a few hours on a sunny, summer afternoon, and again on a sunny August morning, strolling around the narrow streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’, between the South Circular Road and the Grand Canal. I even had coffee in the Bretzel on Lennox Street, until recently the last kosher bakery in Dublin.

Over the space of a number of generations, many cousins of my grandfather and my father lived in the rebrick houses on these narrow street in ‘Little Jerusalem’.

I have written in the past about the many members of the extended Comerford family who lived on Clanbrassil Street, which I remember as the beating heart of the Jewish community in even well into the 1960s, and which is recalled so winsomely by Sonia Harris Pope in The Irish Times last Friday (8 August 2025). [For replies, see here]

Comerford family homes in the streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’ over the past century or more: 43 Warren Street and 1 Kingsland Parade, top; 17 Martin Street and 46 Lennox Street, below (Photographs: Patrick Comerford,2025)

But over the past century or more, there were Comerford family members living in other streets in Little Jerusalem too, including: James and Belinda Comerford who were living at 43 Warren Street at the time of the 1901 census, and Robert Comerford (1856-1925), who lived at 17 Martin Street around the same time. Patrick Comerford (1899-1939) lived at 46 Lennox Street until he died in 1939. His brother Jack Comerford lived across the street at 1 Kingsland Parade until he died in 1949. Stephen Comerford (1924-1982) lived at 39 St Kevin’s Parade. Indeed, there were Comerfords living on Lennox Street up to at least 2011.

Although my father was born in Rathmines and grew up in Terenure, he knew these streets well as a child, where many of his cousins and schoolfriends lived. Many of these side streets had their own small synagogues, including those I have written about in the past on Lennox Street, Walworth Road, Saint Kevin’s Parade and Heytesbury Street, and some that I still remember with fondness.

I have been working on contributions to a new book on the theme of ‘childhood and the Irish’ being put together by my friend and colleague Professor Salvador Ryan of Maynooth. In one paper I have offered for this collection, I look at the fascinating childhood of the Levitas brothers, Maurice, Max and Sol, heroes of the Battle of Cable Street, the Spanish Civil War and radical politics in the East End of London. During their childhood, the Levitas family lived in a series of houses in Little Jerusalem, including 15 Longwood Avenue (1915), 8 Warren Street (1916-1925) and 13 St Kevins Parade (1925-1927).

A portrait of Harry Kernoff in 1931 in the Irish Jewish Museum on Walworth Road in Dublin

Another interesting neighbour in the streets of Portobello was the artist Harry Aaron Kernoff (1900-1974). On that same afternoon stroll around Little Jerusalem this week, I went to see the house at 13 Stamer Street, between Lennox Street and the South Circular Road, where I remember the Kernoff family living until the 1970s.

Harry Aaron Kernoff was born in London in London on 9 January 1900. His parents were an interesting mixture of Jewish traditions and backgrounds: his father Isaac Karnov or Kernoff was a furniture maker from Vitebsk in present-day Belarus; his mother, Katherine Abarbanel or Bardanelle, was descended from a Sephardic family who traced their ancestry to Spain.

The family moved to Dublin when Harry was 14 in May 1914. He spent his early days as an apprentice in his father’s furniture business. An example of Isaac Kernoff's fine work is the Arun haKodesh or holy Ark for the Torah scrolls in Walworth Road synagogue, now part of the Irish jewish Museum.

He was still an apprentice to his father when Harry took night classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art under Sean Keating, Patrick Tuohy and Harry Clarke. He was the first night student and the first Jew to win the Taylor Art Scholarship in 1923, when Jack B Yeats was the judge for the award. The scholarship allowed him to he became a full-time day student.

Throughout his career, Kernoff worked from his studio in the attic of the family home at 13 Stamer Street. He refused to romanticise his work and was one of the few artists in Dublin at the time whose work showed a social conscience and an awareness of the plight of the unemployed, seen in paintings such as ‘Dublin Kitchen’ (1923).

He first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1926, he become a full member of the RHA in 1935, and he continued to exhibit there until he died in 1974. He also joined the Dublin Society of Painters in 1927 and had many solo exhibitions at their studio at 7 Saint Stephen’s Green. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Harry Kernoff’s design for a Jewish New Year card showing a rabbi blowing the shofar

A strong independence of style marked his work, reflected in his one-man exhibitions in Dublin yearly between 1926 and 1958. He developed an interest in the avant-garde and modern movements in the 1920s, but seemed more comfortable with realism and became one of the main artistic chroniclers of social life in urban and rural Ireland. His work chronicled both urban and rural life, with paintings of Dublin landmarks, pubs, shops and houses, as well as paintings of Killarney, Dún Chaoin and the Blasket Islands in Co Kerry, and Foynes, Co Limerick.

Some of his works also have Jewish themes, such as ‘Old Rabbi’, ‘Moses’ and ‘Wise Men of the East’ or ‘Rabbinical Conference’ in the National Gallery of Ireland, or his designs over the year for Jewish New Year cards.

He became ‘one of the main artistic chroniclers of social life’ in urban 20th century Ireland, according to Sarah McAuliffe, curator of post-1900 Irish art at the National Gallery of Ireland. His work is often compared to that of LS Lowry, and she says the two were ‘drawn to representing daily life as it was, without embellishment.’ She suggests Kernoff, as an immigrant, immersed himself in the bustle of Dublin’s city life to ‘feel as though he was an insider.’

‘A Bird Never Flew On One Wing’ by Harry Kernoff celebrates Dublin pub life

A cartoon in the Palace Bar from 1940, ‘Dublin Culture’, shows Kernoff with the elite of Ireland’s art and literary scene in the bar that became an informal gallery for his work.

His work includes theatre sets and costume designs, portraits of literary figures and actors, illustrations, woodcuts and paintings of literary pubs and their characters. In his studio in Stamer Street he painted a range of portraits of leading Dublin figures, including WB Yeats, Flann O’Brien, Sean O’Casey, Hilton Edwards, Frederick Robert Higgins, Brendan Behan, James Joyce and Cyril Cusack, and other promnent figures such as Archbishop William Alexander.

A popular, humorous, and sociable man, he had a fondness for swimming and satiric verse, and he was often seen in the Palace Bar in Fleet Street and Bewley’s café on Grafton Street or scouring other pubs for suitable subjects.

One well-known painting, ‘A Bird Never Flew On One Wing’, depicts two drunken betting men with pints raised and, in the background, the names of Dublin pubs carefully and lovingly written out. There are many versions and prints that show two men cradling pints. One of the men, said to be modelled on a character known as ‘the Toucher Doyle’, has pointed ears and high cheekbones, leading to speculation that he inspired a visiting Hollywood designer to create the character of Spock in Star Trek, according to Kevin O’Connor’s biography Harry Kernoff: The Little Genius.

The plaque commemorating Harry Kernoff was unveiled at 13 Stamer Street in 2013 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Kernoff created the decorative scheme at the Little Theatre in South William Street, and designed the sets for Dublin productions of Sean O’Casey’s ‘The Shadow of a Gunman’ and Lord Dunsany’s ‘The Glittering Gate’.

He was a member of the Radical Club, a group of artists and that met in an era that Kernoff referred to as Dublin’s own ‘jazz age’, and of the Studio Art Club. Like the Levitas brothers, he was also actively involved in left-wing politics, and was involved in anti-fascist campaigns in Dublin.

Years spent as an apprentice to his cabinet-maker father taught him how to skilfully carve woodcuts for block printing. His woodcuts were often used in republican and labour newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s, and he designed the masthead of the communist weekly the Irish Workers’ Voice.

He was a member of the Friends of Soviet Russia, and was part of a delegation to visit Leningrad, Moscow, Baku, Tiflis and Vladikavkaz in 1930. His travelling companions included Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Charlotte Despard, David Fitzgerald and George Gilmore. During that visit, he was so influenced by revolutionary artists in pre-Stalinist Russia that he lectured about his trip when he returned to Dublin and organised a Soviet Poster exhibition.

He visited Paris in 1931 and exhibited ‘Metro’, ‘Paris’, and ‘Place de Tertre’, and had a sole show that year in Gieve’s Gallery, London, where he displayed ‘Ukraine peasant’. He had three solo shows at the Victor Waddington Galleries in 1935, 1937 and 1940, and. He exhibited at world fairs in Glasgow (1938) and New York (1939).

‘The Only Way’ or ‘Peace Scroll’ … a design for a Jewish New Year card 5734 (1973)

He began painting on a smaller scale on canvases in the 1940s and produced hundreds of miniature oil paintings. The first of his three publications of woodcuts appeared in 1942, followed by A Storyteller’s Childhood in 1946.

He was represented at the contemporary Irish art exhibition at Aberystwyth in Wales in 1953. He spent a year painting at Novia Scotia in 1957, and exhibited small watercolours in Lugano and Toronto in 1964 and 1965. His portraits were part of the WB Yeats centenary exhibition in the National Gallery of Ireland in 1965.

For many years he was a member of the arts advisory committee of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, and in 1974, shortly before he died he was made a life member of the United Arts Club, Dublin.

He was predeceased by his parents: Isaac Kernoff died at 13 Stamer Street at 71 on 11 August 1948; Kate Kernoff died there at 89, on 26 November 1969. His brother, Hyman Kernoff, who also lived in the house, died at 59 on 2 December 1960.

Despite being prolific in his work, Kernoff died a poor man. He never married, and he died in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, at the age of 74 on 25 December 1974. He was survived by his sister Lena Kernoff, who also shared the house in Stamer Street. She deposited his papers in the National Library of Ireland in 1975. The Irish Jewish Museum unveiled a plaque in memory of Harry Kernoff at 13 Stamer Street in 2013.

May his memory be a blessing ז״ל

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

The Levitas family homes in the side streets of Little Jerusalem: 8 Warren Street (left), 15 Longwood Avenue (top right) and 13 St Kevin's Parade (lower right) (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Island hopping in Aegean-like summer sunshine in Ireland

A sculptor’s workshop close to Saint John’s Church in Knightstown on Valentia Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

It is two years since I have been in Greece. But now that the vaccine has been rolled out and – despite the forest fires and soaring temperatures in August – Greece appears to be as safe a place to be as Ireland.

I hope to be back in Crete later in September, returning to an island that has been almost like a second home since the 1980s.

But the warm sunshine earlier this summer in Ireland offered opportunities for some ‘island hopping’ in Cork and Kerry that was almost as inviting as ‘island hopping’ in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

Over a number of weeks, two of us found the opportunities – more by accident than design – to visit Valentia Island and the Blasket Islands off the coast of Co Kerry, and Cape Clear Island and Garinish Island off the coast of Co Cork.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, Valentia … is this ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Returning to Valentia
by accident

As the first promises of summer arrived, we spent a day at Kells Bay House and Gardens and Kells Bay Beach on the north loop of the Ring of Kerry, and as the day, drew to a close we visited Cahersiveen.

Cahersiveen’s place in church history includes the story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (1898-1963), who is known as the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican,’ for his daring exploits and the rescue of over 4,000 people, including Jews and Allied soldiers, in Nazi-occupied Rome.

The town’s Roman Catholic parish church is named the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church, in honour of the monumental figure in Irish politics in the early 19th century. Saint Finian’s, the former Church of Ireland parish church in the town, has housed the Oratory Pizza and Wine Bar since 2016.

As the early summer sunshine continued to linger, we found ourselves on the ferry to Valentia Island once again, and visiting the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Knightstown, which claims to be ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe.’

Previous Rectors of Valentia include John Godfrey Day (1830-1847), later Dean of Ardfert (1861-1879), father of Bishop Maurice Day of Clogher and grandfather of Archbishop Godfrey Day, Abraham Isaac, later Dean of Ardfert (1894-1905); the Revd Alexander Delap, father of the marine biologist, Maude Delap (1866-1953); and George Lill Swain, later Dean of Limerick (1929-1954).

The Sensory Garden was designed by Arthur Shackleton to cater for people with disabilities and was opened by Bishop Michael Mayes in 2005.

A sign outside the church claims it is ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe.’ But, of course, that depends on how you draw the maps and boundaries of Europe. No doubt, churches in Iceland could make similar claims, but is Greenland part of Europe of part of the North American continent?

The Blasket Islands in summer sunshine … an invitation to a Mediterranean experience – but only in summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The literary legacy of
the Blasket Islands

The Great Blasket Island is one of the most remote parts of the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking area of Co Kerry. It has been deserted since 1954, but remains a part of Irish literature and cultural identity because of the disproportionate number of islanders whose books were part of the school curriculum for generations of Irish schoolchildren.

Their books continue to be read, and most Irish people are still familiar with the names of Peig Sayers (1873-1958), no matter how negative their memories are of her book, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

I am typical of my generation when I say I still resent having to read through Peig, and it helped to create many long-lasting negative images of how the Irish language was taught at schools in the 1960s.

But my schoolboy experiences of the Kerry Gaeltacht in Ballinskelligs have left me with a life-long affection for this part of Ireland, and a day-long guided tour of the Blasket Islands seemed inevitable during a summer visit to the Dingle Peninsula.

The Church of Ireland school on the Great Blasket set up by Mrs Thompson from Ventry lasted a mere two or three decades (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Great Blasket covers over 1,100 acres of largely mountainous terrain, and is about 4 miles long and half a mile wide.

A number of books were written in the early 20th century by islanders, recording island traditions and way of life. These include Peig or Machnamh Seanamhná (An Old Woman’s Reflections) by Peig Sayers (1939), An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain (1929), and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years a-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin (1933).

During my visit, I began to feel sorry for Peig, with her arranged marriage, her sorrows, her hardships, the children who died without the joys of childhood, the reproaches for her grief and mourning, and the bodies falling out of coffins.

They were stories that should never have been imposed on young teenagers in the 1960s. My new-fond sympathy for Peig was complimented during that visit by comparisons of Tomás Ó Criomhthain with his Russian contemporary Maxim Gorky, placing him within the corpus of European literature of the day.

Cape Clear Island off the coast of Co Cork is intimately linked with the legends surrounding the life Saint Ciarán (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciaran’s legacy
on Cape Clear Island

Clear Island or Cape Clear Island (Cléire or Oileán Chléire), 8 miles off the south-west coast of Co Cork, is the most southerly inhabited part of Ireland. Cape Clear is 3 miles long by 1 mile wide. Most of the 147 residents are bilingual in Irish and English, making this Ireland’s southern-most inhabited Gaeltacht island.

Mizen Head, the mainland’s most southerly point, is to the north-west. The nearest neighbouring island is Sherkin Island, 2 km to the east, and the solitary Fastnet Rock, with its lighthouse, is three miles west of the island. The boat trip from Baltimore this summer took only 40 minutes, with views of the rugged coastline West Cork and occasional sightings of dolphins.

Ferries from Schull and Baltimore arrive into the North Harbour, while the South Harbour is often a berth for yachts and pleasure boats.

Arriving on the ferry from Baltimore into the North Harbour, the first archaeological and ecclesiastical site the visitor sees are the ruins of a 12th-century church, close to the main pier, with Saint Ciaran’s Well beside it.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir gives his name to the ruined church and holy well at the North Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciarán, the island’s patron, is allegedly one of Ireland’s four, early pre-Patrician saints. He is said to have been born on the shoreline beside the harbour, Trá Chiaráin, in front of the well, and the islanders gather there to mark his feast on 5 March each year.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir was one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ and was the founding Bishop of Saighir (Seir-Kieran). He remains the patron saint of the Diocese of Ossory. Sometimes he is called Saint Ciarán the Elder to distinguish him from Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise.

The reverence for Saint Ciarán is reflected in the proliferation of his name on Cape Clear Island, from beaches to holy wells, from churches to graveyards. Indeed, almost every family includes someone with the name Ciarán.

The ruins of Saint Ciaran’s Church, a 12th century rectangular church surrounded by a graveyard, face the North Harbour. A steep climb from the harbour and a 15-minute walk lead up to Saint Ciarán’s Roman Catholic Church, built in 1839. It is the southern-most church still in use in Ireland.

The Italian Garden is the outstanding feature on Garinish Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Mediterranean gardens
on Garinish Island

The Harbour Queen ferry from Glengarriff Pier brought us to Garinish Island at the mouth of Bantry Bay. Garinish is renowned for its gardens, laid out in beautiful walks and it has specimen plants that are rare in this climate.

Garinish Island extends to 15 hectares (37 acres). The gardens on Garnish Island flourish in the mild humid micro-climate of Glengarriff Harbour. This is an island garden of rare beauty, assisted by a mainly pine shelter belt, and known to horticulturists and lovers of trees and shrubs around the world.

The gardens were designed by the architect and garden designer Harold Peto (1854-1933) for the island’s owners, John Annan Bryce (1841-1923), a Belfast-born Scottish politician who bought the island from the War Office in 1910, and his wife Violet (L’Estrange).

Peto and Bryce were a creative partnership, so the island is still renowned for its richness of plant form and colour, changing continuously with the seasons.

The Italian Garden is, perhaps, the outstanding feature of Garinish. Here, Peto’s genius, combined with Bryce’s ideas and resources, resulted in the creation of a formal architectural garden that blends with its natural setting.

The Martello tower on the island dates from the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Plans were drawn up for a mansion incorporating the Martello Tower, but it was never built. Instead, Bryce House, an extensive cottage, became the home of the Bryce family.

Among the guests were the writers George Bernard Shaw, who stayed on the island in 1923 while writing his play, Saint Joan, the poet Æ George Russell, and Agatha Christie.

Bryce House is presented as it would have appeared when the Bryce family lived there. A selection from their vast collection of important paintings, prints, drawings, and books is on display.

A theme throughout the house is the winged lion of Saint Mark, the symbol of Venice – yet another reminder of the Mediterranean during an island-hopping expedition in Ireland this summer.

This two-page feature was first published in the September 2021 edition of ‘The Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough), pp 14-15

The Blasket Islands and a new understanding of Peig and Irish literature

The Blasket Islands in summer sunshine … an invitation to a Mediterranean experience – but only in summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

The Great Blasket Island is one of the most remote parts of the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking area of Co Kerry. It has been deserted since 1954, but remains a part of Irish literature and cultural identity because of the disproportionate number of islanders whose books were part of the school curriculum for generations of Irish schoolchildren.

Their books continue to be read, and most Irish people are still familiar with the names of Peig Sayers (1873-1958), not matter how negative their memories are of her book, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

I am typical of my generation when I say I still resent having to read through Peig, and it helped to create many long-lasting negative images of how the Irish language was taught at schools in the 1960s.

But my schoolboy experiences of the Kerry Gaeltacht in Ballinskelligs have left me with a life-long affection for this part of Ireland, and a visit to the Blasket Islands seemed inevitable during last week’s visit to the Dingle Peninsula.

The main beach on the Great Blasket … home to Ireland’s largest seal colony (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Two of us took a one-day guided tour from Dunquin to the Great Blasket Island last week, when the strong sunshine, blue skies and sparkling sunshine on the seas invited comparisons with island-hoping in the Aegean or the Ionian seas.

The Blasket Islands are an uninhabited group of islands off the Co Kerry coast. There are six principal islands in the archipelago: the Great Blasket Island (An Blascaod Mór), Beginish (Beiginis), Inishnabro (Inis na Bró), Inishvickillane (Inis Mhic Uileáin), Inishtooskert (Inis Tuaisceart) and Tearaght Island (An Tiaracht). At longitude 10° 39.7', Tearaght Island is the westernmost of the Blaskets, and so is the most westerly point in the Republic of Ireland.

The Great Blasket covers over 1,100 acres of largely mountainous terrain, and is about 4 miles long and half a mile wide.

The first home of Peig Sayers is now in ruins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

At its peak, these islands on the edge of Europe had 176 residents in 1916, and all were Irish speakers. They survived mainly through fishing, supplemented by subsistence farming, hunting, fowling and on shore food. There was no shop, no church, no consecrated burials ground and no resident priest or doctor on the island.

An earlier, 19th century school started by Church of Ireland parishioners in Ventry on the mainland provided education in Irish, but last a mere two decades.

There are stories of children who were buried one on top of another in a ceallúnach, kileen or unconsecrated burial ground, without coffins or gravestones, ‘illegitimate’ children being buried face down, supposed suicides that may have been murders that were never investigated, and tiny children being buried in fishbones that served as makeshift coffins.

Young infants were buried without coffins or grave markers in unconsecrated ground (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The islanders were the subject of many anthropological and linguistic studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by writers and linguists including Robin Flower, George Derwent Thomson and Kenneth H Jackson.

In this climate, a number of books were written in the early 20th century by islanders, recording island traditions and way of life. These include Peig or Machnamh Seanamhná (An Old Woman’s Reflections) by Peig Sayers (1939), An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain (1929), and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years a-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin (1933).

Their works in Irish have been translated into English and other languages. I began to feel sorry for Peig, with her arranged marriage, her sorrows, her hardships, the children who died without the joys of childhood, the reproaches for her grief and mourning, and the bodies falling out of coffins.

They were stories that should never have been imposed on young teenagers in the 1960s. It was a new understanding that was complimented by comparisons of Tomás Ó Criomhthain with his Russian contemporary Maxim Gorky, placing him within the corpus of European literature of the day.

The former home of Tomás Ó Criomhthain … his work has been compared to Maxim Gorky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

On the Great Blasket, the island population had fallen to 22 by 1953, and the small fishing community mostly lived in primitive cottages perched on the relatively sheltered north-east shore. But increasingly extreme weather often left the islands and islanders cut off.

The government decided it could no longer guarantee the safety of the remaining population. But the islanders had been asking to be relocated since 1947. They had been cut off from the mainland for weeks because of bad weather in April 1947, and sent a telegram to the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, urgently requesting supplies. The supplies arrived by boat two days later by boat.

The death of Seánín Ó Cearnaigh acted as a catalyst in the islanders’ evacuation. When he became ill, poor weather meant no doctor or priest could reach the island. For many days, the weather stopped his body being taken to the consecrated graveyard across the Blasket Sound in Dunquin. It was a tragic event that led the Islanders ask the government to evacuate them.

The second home of Peig Sayers is part of the revitalisation of the Great Blasket (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The last remaining residents were evacuated on 17 November 1953 at the request of both the Islanders and the government. The most westerly settlement in Ireland was abandoned.

Later, in the 1980s, the former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, bought Inishvickillane and behaved like a mediaeval potentate. It is, perhaps, a commentary on Irish social history that the only two people in Ireland still recognisable by their first names alone are associated with the Blaskets: ‘Peig’ and ‘Charlie.’

The Office of Public Works has bought most of the property on the Great Blasket, including the deserted village, in recent decades. Today, more than 95% of the island, including the old village, form a de facto national park.

Peig Sayers’s second home is part of accommodation available to rent and of a café on the island. The home of Tomás Ó Criomthain was restored by the Office of Public Works in 2018. However, the home of Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and Peig Sayers’s first home are both in ruins.

The school set up by Mrs Thompson from Ventry lasted a mere two or three decades (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Billy O’Connor and the Great Blasket Island Experience began renovating island cottages in 2014, and the restored cottages were opened for summer rentals. Two caretakers were recruited to manage the accommodation and café, but they lived without electricity and hot water.

The largest living presence on the Great Blasket today is a colony of hundreds of seals, the largest seal colony in Ireland. They were visibly enjoying basking in the summer sunshine on the long stretch of sandy beach in the warm summer sunshine last week.

The journey back to Dunquin took less than 20 minutes. The Blasket Islands may have been bleak for generations, but in the summer sunshine they had been inviting.

The Great Blasket in summer sunshine in June (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

A ‘virtual tour’ of the 12 ‘extreme’ points at the edges of Ireland

Sunrise on the banks of the River Shannon in Athlone in the heart of Ireland … but what are the furthest extremes of the island? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have to accept at this stage that I am not going to Greece this year, and – much to my regret – my holiday in Thessaloniki and Halkidiki at the end of August and beginning of September has now been cancelled.

Of course, I would prefer to be healthy this year, and hope to travel to Greece on a number of occasions next year, than to travel to Greece now and not be able to go there at all this year. And I would hate to find out that I had either brought Covid-19 with me to Greece or, instead, brought it back to Ireland.

Now, by way of compensation, I am planning 10 or 12 days in southern Ireland, visiting favourite places – and some new places – in counties Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford.

Living in Askeaton for the past three years or more, I have been able to visit parts of Ireland that might have been more difficult to reach in other circumstances, from the Aran Islands in Galway Bay to the extremities of the Kerry peninsulas.

What are the furthest extremes of Ireland that you have visited?

When we take the map of the full island and exclude offshore islands and rocky outcrops – ignoring Rockall and Rathlin for example – there are 12 ways of defining the extreme points of Ireland: the whole island; the Republic of Ireland, excluding Northern Ireland; and then Northern Ireland on its own.

On the cliffs above the Giant’s Causeway … the farthest north I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Four extreme points on the mainland of Ireland:

The extreme points of the mainland of Ireland, in clockwise direction, are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Burr Point on Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (10° 28′ 46″ W)

The geographical centre of Ireland is 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree.

It is interesting that the most northern point on the island is in the Republic of Ireland and not in Northern Ireland, that the point furthest east is in Northern Ireland, and the extreme points south and west are so close to one another (at least as the crow flies).

Mizen Head … the furthest south I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have not been to all these extremities. But the furthest north, east, south and west I have been on the island of Ireland to date are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N). My most recent visit to the Giant’s Causeway was on 12 November 2016, when I was on a visit to the North Antrim coast.

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W). I was there in September 1998 to speak at the Annual Conference of the Church of Ireland Men’s Society in Donaghadee Parish Church on ‘The 1798 Rebellion and the Church of Ireland.’ During that visit I stood on the shoreline, with a clear view across to the coast of Scotland.

South: The furthest south I have been is at Mizen Head, visiting the lighthouse or signal station (51° 27' 00" north) on 21 May 2016. Earlier that same day I had lunch in O’Sullivan’s in Crookhaven (51° 28' 09" north), which claims to serve the ‘most southerly pint in Ireland.’

West: When I travelled through the Dingle Peninsula on 20 September 2017, I stood at the end of western tip of Slea Head (51° 28' 09" N), near Dunmore Head, looking at the Blasket Islands.

Looking out at the Blasket Islands from the western tip of Slea Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The geographical centre of Ireland, according to the Irish Ordnance Survey, is in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree, where the 8° Meridian West meets the 53°30' North Latitude. It is opposite the Cribby Islands and 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town. Lecarrow is the closest population centre.

An alternative centre-point for Ireland has been placed, at a point 3 km south of Athlone in east Co Roscommon. So, if I have to place myself in the middle of Ireland, then I have been to Athlone many times, and on the shores of Lough Ree, and enjoyed a rink in Sean’s Bar, which claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, and perhaps the pub in the heart of Ireland too.

Wicklow Harbour … probably the furthest east I have been in the Republic of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But I have not been to all the extremities of the Republic of Ireland either. They are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Wicklow Head, Co Wicklow (05° 99′ 78″); although, if the islands are included, the point furthest east is Lambay Island (06° 00′ 54″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (Latitude: 51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (Longitude: 10° 28′ 46″ W)

The furthest north, east, south and west I have been in the Republic of Ireland to date are:

North: The furthest north I have been in the Republic is Redcastle on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal, when I was at an ordination in the late 1980s, or Arnold’s Hotel, in Dunfanaghy, when the then Bishop Michael Jackson invited me to speak at the Clogher Clergy Conference. So, I need to make some careful calculations to figure out this piece of extreme tourism.

East: Wicklow Town, the tip of Howth Head or the shores of Portrane, Co Dublin, looking out onto Lambay Island. I never managed to complete a boat trip from Skerries to Lambay Island one summer’s evening some years ago, and I have not yet walked out to the edge of Wicklow Town. So, once again, I need to make some difficult calculations.

South: Mizen Head and Crookhaven.

West: The end of western tip of Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula.

Looking out at Lambay Island from the shores of Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The four extreme points of mainland Northern Ireland, excluding the islands, are:

North: Benbane Head, Co Antrim (55°15′ N)

East: Burr Point, Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: a point south of Greencastle, Co Down (54° 2′ N)

West: Bradoge Bridge, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), and the most westerly town in Northern Ireland is nearby Belleek (8°10′ W).

The four extreme limits of Northern Ireland I have visited are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N)

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W)

South: The furthest south I have been in Northern Ireland is Kilkeel, Co Down (54.059°N), on the road from Rostrevor to Newcastle.

West: A point west Belleek, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), crossing the border on a minor road from Bundoran, Co Donegal, into Garrison, Co Fermanagh, around 1970.

Sean’s Bar in Athlone, beneath the shadows of Athlone Castle, claims to date back to 900 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A dozen Irish islands worth visiting … when this social isolation ends

Sunrise on Inishmore … the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

The present travel restrictions in Ireland, imposed last week in response to the Corona virus or Covid-19 pandemic mean that all travel to the offshore islands is restricted to the permanent residents of those islands.

So, if you are feeling wistful and wanting to conjure up images in your mind’s eye of some of these offshore islands, here are images of a dozen or so islands (click on the images for full-screen views).

Some, of course, have no residents, permanent or part-time, so I imagine they are receiving no visitors at all. Others are joined to the Irish mainland by bridges, so I imagine they do not face the same restrictions. And one is not really an island … guess which one.

1, Achill Island, Co Mayo:

Dugort beach and Slievemore on Achill Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have been a regular visitor to Achill Island since I first visited it at the end of 1974. Although my visits I have been less frequent since moving to Askeaton three years ago, I was invited a number of times in recent years to speak at the Heinrich Boll summer school in Achill.

Of course, Achill is linked to the rest of Co Mayo by a bridge at Achill Sound. But it still feels like an island.

2, Inishbiggle, Co Mayo:

Inishbiggle is an inhabited offshore island off another island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inishbiggle must be unique as an inhabited offshore island off another island. It is wedged between Achill and the Mayo coastline. In recent years, I have been invited during the Heinrich Boll summer school in Achill to lead a walking tour of Inishbiggle and to speak in the church about Nangle and the role of his Achill Mission on Inishbiggle.

3, The Blasket Islands, Co Kerry:

The Blasket Islands have had no permanent residents since 1954 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Blasket Islands are said to be the western-most part of Munster. The last permanent residents left the Blasket Islands in 1954, although the former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey had his own house there in the 1980s.

The islanders included Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig Sayers and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. But Peig Sayers, the scourge of every schoolboy trying to learn Irish and forced to read her autobiographical Peig was actually born on the Kerry mainland in Dunquin, and died on the mainland in Dingle.

4, Valentia Island, Co Kerry:

Valentia Island and the Royal Valentia Hotel at Knightstown is not strictly an offshore island … it is linked to the Kerry mainland by a bridge at Port Magee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is probably another diversion, for Valentia Island is not strictly an offshore island … it is linked to the Kerry mainland by a bridge at Port Magee.

I first visited Valentia as a schoolboy in 1966, and visited again in recent years. I have been promising myself ever since that I should stay overnight sometime in the Royal Valentia Hotel at Knightstown.

5, Lambay Island, Co Dublin:

Lambay Island from the shoreline below the Lynders house at the Quay, Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This photograph of Lambay Island was taken from the shoreline beneath the house where my grandmother Bridget Lynders was married from in 1905. I recently tried to visit Lambay Island from Skerries, but the venture had to be called off when the boat started to take in too much water.

This is the eastern-most part of the province of Leinster and the largest island off the east coast of Ireland. It was known to Ptolemy and the Greeks as Εδρου (Edrou). The Baring family commissioned Edwin Lutyens to transform a house on Lambay Island into a castle, and Michael Powell stayed in Lambay Castle while he wrote the screenplay for Black Narcissus, a 1947 movie about a group of Anglican nuns, led by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), sent to a mountain in the Himalayas.

Today, Lambay has six residents, but the principal resident population of the island are the birds, a herd of 200 fallow deer introduced by the Barings, and a colony of 100 wallabies moved here from Dublin Zoo.

6, Tarbert Island, Co Kerry:

The lighthouse on Tarbert Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Tarbert Island in is one of the many islands in the Shannon estuary in Co Kerry and Co Limerick in my group of parishes. Most people who visit Tarbert do not realise there is an island here because Tarbert Island, with Tarbert House, the Tarbert ferry point, a lighthouse and a power station, is linked to the town by a causeway.

The car ferry between Tarbert in Co Kerry and Killimer in Co Clare is a 20-minute crossing. This route is the longest distance domestic ferry in Ireland.

Foynes Island and Foynes Harbour … one of the busiest harbours in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Foynes Island is another of the many islands in the Shannon Estuary that are part of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes.

Foynes was the home of the ‘flying boats’ before the development of Shannon Airport. Foynes is the home of Irish coffee and of Foynes Yacht Club. Foynes Island was the home of the Conor O’Brien, who once sailed around the world and spent his last days here. The island still belongs to the O’Brien family.

The causeway linking Carrig Island with the north Kerry coast near Carrigafoyle Castle, near Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Another island in the parish, Carrig Island, is joined to the north Kerry coast by a causeway. This tiny island covers 261 acres and its highest point is 6 metres above sea level. Like Foynes Island, it is a townland in its own right.

The island was once part of the estate of Trinity College Dublin, and in 1837, Samuel Lewis notes, it was farmed by the Revd SB Lennard of Adare, and was ‘in a high state of cultivation.’ It also had a barrack for 20 men and a coastguard station. Carrig Island features in Brendan Kennelly’s The Boats are Home, and in particular in his poems ‘The Bell,’ ‘Living Ghosts’ and ‘The Island Man.’ Today it has a population of six.

Islands and islets where the River Deel flows into the Shannon estuary north of Askeaton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Other islands in the parish include Aughunish, but there are seemingly countless other, smaller islands in the Shannon estuary too.

At the east end of the parish boundaries are Pigott’s Island, Waller’s Island and Bushy Island, close to Castletown Church and Pallaskenry. In the mouth of the River Deel, where it flows into the Shannon Estuary immediately north of Askeaton, Greenish Island is the largest of the small islands, islets, rocky outcrops and raised mudflats and sandbanks that are marked on maps. Close by are White’s Island and the little island of Lan Tighe.

Island Macteige was once an island off Aughunish, but it is now joined to the mainland and is now a peninsula.

7, The Skerries Islands, Co Dublin:

Shenick Island can be reached on foot at low tide (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Skerries in north Co Dublin has long been one of my favourite places for beach walks – usually preceded or followed by coffee in the Olive café. The town has five islands off its coastline. Three of these islands are grouped together and are known as the Skerries Islands: Shenick Island, Saint Patrick’s Island and Colt Island.

Shenick, the largest of the three islands, takes its name from the Irish word sionnach, ‘fox.’ Shenick Island can be reached on foot at low tide. Like many other Dublin islands, it has a Martello tower, built during a threatened Napoleonic invasion in the early 19th century.

Saint Patrick’s Island and Colt Island off the coast of Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Island has the ruins of an early church, and is one of the many places where Saint Patrick is said to have first landed in Ireland.

Colt Island is the closest and smallest of three low-lying, uninhabited islands off Skerries. Like the other two Skerries Islands, it is an important for breeding seabirds and wintering waterfowl.

Rockabill Island – also off Skerries – is actually two islands separated by a channel. The lighthouse built on Rockabill in the 1850s has been automated since the 1970s.

Red Island, seen from the South Beach in Skerries, is now joined to the mainland by a causeway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Skerries Islands can be viewed as a cluster from Red Island, which also has a Martello View, and has views as far north as the Mourne Mountains. In the past, it was known as Key Island and later, in the 17th century, as Haven Island, names that refer to the harbour on the north side of the island.

But, despite its name, Red Island is no longer an island. It is now a rocky headland connected to the mainland by a roadway that forms part of the quay wall of the harbour.

When Skerries became a popular holiday resort in the 20th century, Red Island was the centre of summer activities, and a holiday camp opened on Red Island in 1947. It also had a dance hall, theatre, a miniature golf course, a sun lounge and a bar. It was demolished in 1980.

8, Dalkey Islands, Co Dublin:

Dalkey island was inhabited 6,000 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Dalkey Island is just 300 metres offshore and has an area of 9 hectares. Its name comes from the Irish deilg (‘thorn’) and the Old Norse øy (‘island’ – as in Ireland’s Eye). The island has no residents, but as I sailed round it some years ago, I could the remains of a church, houses, fortifications and a Martello Tower.

Archaeological evidence shows that the first residents lived on Dalkey Island in the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, and that it was inhabited 6,000 years ago. There are remains of an Iron Age fort, although only the ditch is noticeable today. People continued to live on Dalkey Island until the Early Christian period, and there are suggestions that the island was a trading centre during Roman and Viking times.

The ruined stone church, named after Saint Begnet, was built in the ninth or tenth century, but there may have been an older wooden church on the site. The church was probably abandoned when the Vikings used the island as a base to form part of the busiest port in Ireland at the time.

The Admiralty built a Martello Tower and a gun battery on Dalkey Island in 1804. The builders of the tower used the church ruins as living quarters, and altered the east side of the church, adding windows and a fireplace.

9, Scattery Island, Co Clare:

Scattery Island, once a diocese on its own, was inhabited until 1978 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scattery Island in the Shannon Estuary, with its ruined cathedral, six churches, round tower and monastic sites, was once an independent diocese. The island, which can be reached by boat from Kilrush Marina in Co Clare, also has a lighthouse, the remains of an artillery battery, a visitor centre, a ruined castle and the scattered remains of the homes of families who lived on the island until the 1970s. Most of the island is now owned by the Office of Public Works.

The main church on the island is Saint Mary’s Cathedral, probably built in the 8th century, and repeatedly altered and enlarged until the 15th century. The population of Scattery Island peaked at 141 in 1881, and the population continued to thrive into the 20th century, with a post office opening in the 1930s. The school closed in 1948, and the last two islanders, brother and sister Bobby and Patricia McMahon, left Scattery in 1978.

Inis Cathaigh remains the name of a titular see in the Roman Catholic Church, and today the titular Bishop of Inis Cathaigh is Bishop Josef Graf, an auxiliary bishop of Regensburg in Germany. In the Church of Ireland, Inniscattery remains the name of a prebendal stall in the United Chapter of the Cathedrals of Limerick, Killaloe and Clonfert. Since 2016, the Prebendary of Inniscattery is Canon Ruth Gill.

10, Inisheer, Galway Bay:

Island-hopping on Inisheer in the Aran Islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Inisheer (the ‘east island’) is the smallest of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, but the first stopping point for arrivals on the ferry from Doolin in Co Clare. This island extends to 1,400 acres and is an outcrop of the Burren landscape in Co Clare. O’Brien’s Castle, a 15th century castle, was built within Dún Formna, a cashel that is thousands of years old.

Inishmaan, the middle island, has a land area of 2,252 acres. Inishmore, literally the ‘Big Island,’ is the largest of the Aran Islands, with an area of 31 sq km (12 sq m) or 7,635 acres and a population of about 840. It is known for its strong Irish culture, Irish language as a Gaeltacht area, and a wealth of pre-Christian and Christian ancient sites including Dún Aengus, described as ‘the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe.’

11, The Skelligs, Co Kerry:

The monastic islands at Skelligs are now closed off, even to the makers of Star Wars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The monastic settlement on Great Skellig is said to have been founded in the sixth century by Saint Fionán. The first definite reference to monks on the Skelligs dates to the eighth century when the death of ‘Suibhni of Scelig’ is recorded. While the monks settled on the rocks of Skellig Michael, they found a winter home on the mainland in Ballinskelligs.

A number of factors in the 13th century forced the monks to abandon their monastery on Skellig Michael: there was a general deterioration in the climate in this part of Europe, bringing with it colder weather and increased storms; the structures of the Irish Church had changed, shifting from an emphasis on the monasteries to the diocesan structures; and, with the reorganisation of the church and monastic life, the Rule of Saint Augustine suited a more stable existence in a new priory at Ballinskelligs.

With the dissolution of the monastic houses at the Reformation, the monks lost their grip on the Skelligs Rocks, and in 1578, the Skellig Islands passed to the Butler family. The islands were bought by the predecessors of the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1821 for £780 from the Butler family of Waterville. In 1989, the State bought the islands from the Commissioners of Irish Lights, with the exception of the working lighthouse and ancillary areas. In 1996, Skellig Michael was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Skellig Michael was one of a location for filming two episodes of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. Skellig Michael was closed off to visitors during filming in September 2014 and again in September 2015. Will it still be closed off to visitors in September 2020?

12, Great Island, Co Cork:

A view from Cobh on Great Island across Cork Harbour and the neighbouring islands of Haulbowline and Spike Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Cobh is a harbour and the largest town on Great Island in Cork Harbour and the mouth of the River Lee. Great Island is connected by road bridge to Fota Island to the north – which, in turn, connects through a causeway to the Cork mainland. This road bridge, Belvelly Bridge, was built in 1803 at one of the narrowest points in the channels around Great Island. The bridge is the only road bridge to the island. And still the road to Cork has to cross two further islands – Brown Island and Harper’s Island.

A railway bridge and rail line also runs out through Fota Island to Great Island. The railway stations on Great Island include Carrigaloe, Rushbrooke and the terminus at Cobh. A ferry service also connects the island from a point near Carrigaloe to the Cork mainland at a point near Passage West.

Cobh is a pretty town on a steep hill on Great Island, with distinctive Victorian architecture and streetscape crowned by Saint Colman’s Cathedral. It is closely identified with the stories of the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania. Some of the offshore islands off Cobh include Haulbowline and Spike Island.

So many islands:

Windsurfers and kite-surfers on Bull Island on a winter’s day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ireland is not just an island, but a collection of islands, some of them inhabited, others uninhabited today, but once providing homes for monks and families; some of them are offshore and some of them off other islands. There are 240 off-shore islands before we even begin to count the inshore islands in rivers and lakes.

Most are natural islands, some are no longer islands, as is the case with Red Island, and it is difficult to know whether to count the many islands in the estuary of the River Lee that Cork City is built on.

Bull Island in Dublin Bay is a 5 km ‘man-made’ island. Its beach – Dollymount Strand – was formed when the Great South Wall was built in in 1730 and the North Bull Wall was built in 1825 to reduce silting in the Port of Dublin.

Bull Island became Ireland’s first National Bird Sanctuary in 1931, and today it has the most nature conservation designations in all of Ireland. It is, apparently, the only Unesco Biosphere Reserve located entirely in a capital city.

Ireland’s Eye got its name through mistranslation. In Celtic times it was known as Eria’s Island – Eria being a woman’s name at the time – but this was later confused with the Irish word for Ireland, Eireann. The Viking word for island was øy, and so it ultimately came to be known as Ireland’s Eye.

A monastery was founded on the island during the sixth century, and a ruined church dates from the year 700. The island is also the site of one of Howth’s three Martello towers.

Which are your favourite offshore islands?

On Ireland’s Eye, off Howth Head, north Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)