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)

Palm Sunday in Christ Church Cathedral and the first day of Spring in Donabate

Mediterranean Spring colours on the beach in Donabate this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

We celebrated Palm Sunday in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with the Palm Sunday procession beginning in the Cloister Garth.

Canon David Gillespie presided at the Eucharist, sung by the Cathedral Choir to the setting of William Walton’s Miss Brevis, and with a dramatic Gospel reading (Luke 22: 14 to 23: 56). There was music too by Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Ireland and Thomas Tallis:

Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness,
leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,
come into the daylight's splendour,
there with joy thy praises render
unto him whose grace unbounded
hath this wondrous banquet founded;
high o'er all the heavens he reigneth,
yet to dwell with thee he deigneth.

Later seven of us had lunch in the Larder in Parliament Street, a close walk away from the cathedral.

In the warm Spring sunshine, under a clear blue sky, there was a summer look to the day, but I was surprised earlier this morning when the daily Google Doodle reminded me that today was the first day of Spring 2016.

Irish people traditionally regard Saint Brigid’s Day (1 February) as the first day of spring. Traditionally, Irish people regard 1 February,the feast of Saint Brigid of Kildare as the first day of Spring. The last of the great wandering bards, Antoine Ó Raifteirí (1779-1835), or Raftery the Poet, wrote about the coming of Spring with the coming of Saint Brigid’s day in words that most Irish schoolchildren can recite:

Anois teacht an Earraigh
beidh an lá dúl chun shíneadh,
Is tar eis na féil Bríde
ardóigh mé mo sheol.

Now coming of the Spring
the day will be lengthening,
and after Saint Brigid’s Day
I shall raise my sail.

If Irish people enjoy hailing “a grand stretch in the day” from 1 February onwards, Spring did not arrive in Dublin last month, and I remember the first week of February this year felt a lot more like the continuing days of winter.

Looking towards Ireland’s Eye and Howth Head from the beach in Donabate on the first day of Spring 2016 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

But today truly marks the beginning of the astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere with the Spring or vernal equinox. The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to north. This happens on 19, 20 or 21 March every year, and happened today [20 March] this year.

With a spring in our steps, two of us went out to Donabate in Fingal in north Co Dublin after lunch for a walk on the beach.

There was a slight chill in the air, but there were no clouds, and the sun was strong enough to feel on my face.

With golden sands, blue skies and blue seas, this was like a Mediterranean Spring scene, and I found myself looking forward to a beautiful, sun-kissed summer.

A taste of the summer to come? … a sandcastle on the beach in Donabate this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Halfway along the walk along the lengthy beach, from the Martello Tower south towards the estuary that separates the Donabate/Portrane Peninsula from Malahide, a child had built the first sandcastle I have seen on a beach this year.

To the south there were clear views of Ireland’s Eye and Howth Head. Turning back to look north, there were clear views of Lambay Island and the towers at Portrane Hospital.

Looking out towards Lambay Island from Donabate Beach this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Back in Donabate, we had double espressos in Mrs Jones Farm Kitchen before heading back to the southside. Now that “there’s a grand stretch in evenings” and Spring has arrived, hopefully Summer is not too far behind.

Palm Sunday depicted in a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Island hopping to Ireland’s Eye, the tiny island close to Howth

Ireland’s Eye is just a mile off the coast from Howth, but feels like a seldom-visited island in the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The summer sun returned for today’s bank holiday [4 August 2014] and two of us booked a Dublin Bay Cruise at 1 p.m. from Howth to the City Centre on board the MV St Bridget, and contemplating the option of then continuing on to Dun Laoghaire.

However, we were sadly disappointed when we arrived at the West Pier to find the 1 p.m. sailing had been cancelled because of a technical malfunction at the bridge on the Liffey. It was no fault of the operating company, Dublin Bay Cruises, and we plan to take the option of rebooking on another day.

5188 Small boats leave the East Pier in Howth for Ireland’s Eye every half hour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We were heading back to find a light lunch when accidentally we came across a sign on the East Pier advertising boat trips to Ireland’s Eye, the tiny, uninhabited island a mile immediately north of Howth.

Ireland’s Eye is only 21.5 hectares in size, and a number of boats run by two local companies leave the East Pier in Howth regularly throughout the day during the summer months.

Arriving at Ireland’s Eye in the afternoon sun (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The journey took only 15 minutes. As we left Howth Harbour, there were views first to the beach at Sutton, and then out to sands of Portmarnock and Malahide. Soon we could glimpse the towers at Portrane, before Lambay Island came into sight.

We were brought around the west side of Ireland’s Eye to the north side of the island to disembark at a flight of tiny steps on the rocks beside the 200-year-old Martello Tower.

The tower has a window five metres above ground level, but children were scaling up and down the side on a rope hanging from the window that gave them access to the inside of the tower.

Ireland’s Eye has half a dozen or more expansive, sandy beaches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We climbed back down the cliffs to the south side of the island, and walked along the cliff-edge walks leading down to a series of four or five beaches along the length of the south and west coasts of the island.

Some of these beaches are little more than sand-covered tiny coves, others are as picturesque and as beautiful as beaches in Achill and Connemara that are promoted as typical Irish beaches.

In the warm summer summer sunshine, this could have been Greece, Turkey or Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

They include some of the few west-facing sandy beaches on the east coast of Ireland, and in today’s warm summer sunshine it felt like being on a remote island in Greece or off the coast of either Turkey or Italy, with all the fun of island hopping.

At the east end of the island, we came to a range of rocks that links Ireland’s Eye to the tiny islet of Thulla.

The Stack at the north-east corner of the island is home to a large variety of seabirds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We then turned north to walk across the island, below the summit to the Black Hole, a tiny, grey shingle cove, and spectacular, dramatic views of the huge, free-standing rock known as “The Stack,” at the north-east corner of the island.

The Stack is home to a large variety of seabirds, including thousands of guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and gulls. Ireland’s fifth gannet colony was established on the Stack in the 1980s, and now a few hundred pairs are breeding there each year.

The island also has a large cormorant colony and a few breeding pairs of puffins, while Grey Seals are abundant in the sea around Ireland’s Eye.

The church is linked to the ‘Garland of Howth’ ... an early manuscript of the Four Gospels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Below us, in a hollow to the west, we could see the ruins of an eighth-century church, known as the Church of the Three Sons of Nessan. Local lore says that around the year 700 AD three monks, the sons of Nessan, a prince of the Royal House of Leinster, built the first church on Ireland’s Eye.

The monastery is said to be the place where a manuscript copy of the Four Gospels, the Garland of Howth, was compiled in the late ninth to early tenth centuries. Also known as the Codex Usserianus Secundus, this is a fragment of a mediaeval Irish Vetus Latina gospel book, or a Latin version preating the Vulgate.

The Garland of Howth was later kept in the parish church in Howth. It is written with dimuendo script from initials, a feature of the oldest manuscripts in insular script, such as Cathach of Saint Columba. It has been described as the work of many scribes, none of them first-class.

The “garland” of its title is derived from a corrupted English form of the Irish Ceithre Leabhair “four books,” referring to the Four Gospels. Only 86 folios have survived; for example only John 5: 12 to 10: 3 has survived from the Gospel according to Saint John. It is now in Trinity College Dublin (Ms. 56).

Ireland’s Eye was named bhy the Vikings who attacked the island in the 9th and 10th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Vikings attacked the island late in the 9th century and they returned in the 10th century to pillage and plunder it. It was they who gave the island its name – the word Ey is the Norse for island, and so it eventually became Ireland’s Eye.

Cill Mac Nessan eventually ceased to function as a church in the 13th century, when the monastic community and life was moved to Saint Mary’s Abbey in Howth.

Ireland’s Eye remained uninhabited until the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the 19th century, when the Martello Tower was built.

The Black Hole ... at the centre of a Victorian scandal and murder trial (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

A few decades later, the island was the centre of a scandal in September 1852, when Sarah Maria Louisa Kirwan was killed on the island. She and her husband, William Burke Kirwan, an artist who lived at 11 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin, were on holidays in Howth, and regularly visited Ireland’s Eye, where he sketched while his wife bathed.

At his trial, William Burke Kirwan was defended by a spirited Isaac Butt, a Home Rule MP and one of the most eminent barristers of the day. He was convicted of her murder, although later researchers claim there was no murder and that Sarah Kirwan drowned accidentally after an epileptic seizure.

William Burke Kirwan was sentenced to death, but this was commuted by the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Eglinton, to life in prison. He was the last prisoner on Spike Island, and was released on 3 March 1879, on condition that heshould leave Ireland. It is said that after his release Kirwan took the boat to Liverpool and then moved to the US, where he married Theresa Kenny, the woman said to have been his mistress throughout his marriage and the mother of his nine children.

A local legend in Howth says that years later he returned to Ireland and visited Ireland’s Eye, where he stood “wrapped in contemplation at the Long Hole, surveying the scene of his adventure.” A sunset watercolour of Ireland’s Eye and a sketch of Maria by Kirwan are among a collection of his prints and drawings in the National Library of Ireland. At his trial, Kirwan claimed that a sketch he had made of the sunset on the day of his wife’s death proved he could not have killed her.

Leaving behind the cliffs and caves of Ireland’s Eye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We returned to Howth on the Pinalia, a companion of the Christmas Eve. The Pinalia once operated as an angling boat out of Killybegs in Co Donegal, while the Christmas Eve hs operated out of Valentia Island in Co Kerry running trips to the Skelligs.

The trip to Ireland’s Eye takes 15 minutes and costs €15 for an adult, €10 for a child. You can spend as long as you wish on ths island, and at this time of the year the last boat returns at 5 p.m.

Back in Howth, we shared two panini and had two double espressos in Il Panorama café, at Island View on Harbour Road, a tiny, friendly Italian-Australian café and wine bar with views across the harbour and out to Ireland’s Eye.

The cruise on Dublin Bay must wait for another day.

Sometimes it is a joy when imagination becomes reality

Imagination and reality ... on the beach on the Coast Road south of Malahide this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerfo4rd

I stayed up too late last night, watching the World Cup. After seeing England being beaten solidly by Uruguay, it seemed their exit from the tournament was all but sealed. There were six Liverpool players on the field, but the one who was playing for Uruguay ensured England’s defeat.

Nonetheless, I was still keeping my hope in Greece. And that hope was badly blistered later in the night as a 10-member Greek squad barely managed to hold out for a score-less draw against Japan.

Greece now has to hope for a win on Tuesday night against Côte d’Ivoire, which has already beaten Japan and lies second in Group B.

The agenda for the Us (USPG) conference in High Leigh next Tuesday has been altered to allow us time to watch England play Costa Rica at 5 p.m. But the result, as they say is academic, and the real clincher in Group D – after Italy’s defeat at the hands of Costa Rica this evening – is going to be the match at the same time between Italy and Uruguay.

Having stayed up too late for my own good last night, three of us went for a late lunch this afternoon in the Gourmet Food Parlour in Malahide. The restaurant is a wonderful location, with full-length windows looking out to the coastline at Robbswalls, the sea, the sands of the Donabate Peninsula, and Lambay Island looking so like a floating whale out in the Irish Sea.

Even there, though, it was impossible to get away from thinking about football – the restaurant also calls itself MU GFP Malahide – no, and to save this ABU fan’s blushes, not after Manchester United, but after Malahide United, whose grounds and premises are shared with the Gourmet Food Parlour.

For a brief moment we had wondered whether we should have continued further north to Bettystown on Co Meath coast. But the reports this week of heavy water pollution in Bettystown and a slow response from Meath County Council put a quick end to that discussion.

Looking out to Lambay Island from the rocks and the sand at Malahide this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

As aunt and niece continued to talk at a table outside after lunch, I walked down to the Coast Road alone and stepped down to the shoreline, where Low Rock leads to High Rock, interspersed with tiny sandy coves and little sheltered beaches.

It was a bright, warm sunny afternoon, and small groups of families and friends were enjoying the sunshine and the water, venturing in to swim, while to the south in the distance, near Portmarnock, a small cluster of sails was a sign of sailing lessons in summer bliss.

Joggers and strollers were enjoying the pathway along the Coast Road, and the walls down to the shore provided extra protection against the breeze, making the afternoon feel sunnier and warmer than it really was. It is a joy when imagination becomes reality.

I was back in time to watch the Italy v Costa Rica match which was being played in Recife in Brazil, and in an idle moment recalled that Dom Helder Camara had once been Archbishop of Recife.

Dom Helder Camara was the Brazilian archbishop who was one of the inspiring figures in Latin American liberation theology. As a young priest he served in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro, where he began to speak of the unjust structures of poverty: “When you live with the poor, you realise that, even though they cannot read or write, they certainly know how to think.”

It was he who spoke at Vatican II, of God’s “preferential option for the poor.”

His response to those who denounced him as “the red bishop” sums up his theology: “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

Dom Helder Camara died 15 years ago on 27 August 1999, at the age of 90, but his dreams live on with those who share his values. Yes, sometimes it would be a joy to see imagination become reality.

Dreaming dreams ... a door into a secret garden at Robswalls in Malahide this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

Looking out across the beach at Portrane in the late afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

I was a little late – almost a fortnight late, to confess. It’s almost two weeks since Remembrance Day, but I went to Portrane this afternoon to visit my grandparent’s grave in Saint Catherine’s, the old Church of Ireland churchyard, and I honoured my grandfather’s memory, placing a small wooden cross with a poppy on the grave.

I bought this poppy cross in the Cathedral Bookshop in the Close in Lichfield earlier this month, and recalled my grandfather’s ordeals during World War I when I preached on Remembrance Day in the Chapel of the King’s Hospital, Palmerstown.

Once again, this afternoon, as I looked at my grandparents’ gravestone, I thought of how sad it is that he is given the wrong age at the time of his death. Stephen Comerford was born on 28 December 1867, and died on 21 January 1921 at the age of 53. But this gravestone says he died at the age of 49 – the age he was when he came back from the war in 1916. As his health deteriorated as a consequence of the malaria he contracted in Thessaloniki, he had remained 49 for ever in my grandmother’s heart.

A Poppy Cross on grandfather’s grave in Portrane this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

As the ‘Ode of Remembrance’ says:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

I spent some time in the late afternoon first looking out at the sea at the Burrow Beach in Portrane, and then at the rocks and waves at Tower Bay, and out to Lambay Island.

At the going down of the sun, I was on the beach at Donabate. The colours of the skies, the sea and the sands changed in each moment, and I stood for a while alone watching the scene before me move from golden browns to misty blues.

The colours on the beach at sunset in Donabate …

…changed and changed again in the twinkling of the eye this evening (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Later, two of us returned through Drumcondra and the city centre, and we stopped for coffee in 46HX, a new café that opened beside the Hospice in recent months.

Finally, we stopped at Marianella, the Redemptorist House in Rathgar, to pay tribute to Father Alec Reid, the peace-broker, who died yesterday.

When you go home
tell them of us and say,
for your tomorrow
we gave our today.

Trying to tell fact from fiction among the books in the big tent in Portrane

Trying to tell the difference between fact and fiction, truth and lies, in between the books at Portrane this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Not a penny more, not a penny less.

Honour among thieves.

And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

All titles of novels by Jeffrey Archer.

But how appropriate, I thought, that stuck in among these works of fiction by the great perjurer and politician was Bertie Ahern, The Autobiography.

Sometimes, I suppose, it can be difficult in life to tell the difference between fact and fiction, truth and lies. But it galls me that those who would like to think that none of us knows the difference then want to make more money out of us by peddling us their tales between the covers of book.

Despite what Jeffrey Archer says, I doubt whether there is any Honour among thieves.

Oh well, Bertie sat there for most of the afternoon. Until one buyer offered 20 cent ... not a penny more, not a penny less.

I spent the afternoon as a volunteer in the big red and white tent at the annual sale at The Quay in Portrane in aid of Heart to Hand and its projects in Romania and Albania.

The rain held off for most of this bank holiday Saturday afternoon, and in between the sales pitches, I managed to take time for a short stroll on the beach below the Lynders family home at The Quay, looking out onto Lambay Island.

The sale continues each afternoon this weekend, closing on Monday afternoon.

And there are some really good books (honestly) for sale in the bid red-and-white tent. Five for €1 ... not a penny more, not a penny less.

Looking out at Lambay Island from the small beach beneath The Quay in Portrane this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)