#Blasket Islands

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1873 – Birth of Blasket Island storyteller, Peig Sayers, in Dunquin, Co Kerry.

Born Máiréad Sayers in the townland of Vicarstown, Dunquinn, Co Kerry, the youngest child of the family. She was called Peig after her mother, Margaret “Peig” Brosnan, from Castleisland. Her father Tomás Sayers was a renowned storyteller who passed on many of his tales to Peig. At age 12, she was taken out of school and went to work as a servant for the Curran family in the nearby town of Dingle,…

[naturalwomannaturalman]

Road to the heaven.

[diningwiththeasquiths]

In my other Ireland vacation post I promised a separate post about the eco marine tour we went on. So here it is.

This tour's starting point is in Ventry, on the Dingle Peninsula, and I highly recommend it. The people are very friendly and experienced, and clearly care deeply about the wildlife. (This has also been my experience during two Cornwall boat tours in 2018, passionate people who respect nature are the best tour guides imo. ❤️)

Our trip got postponed by one day, ensuring that we had the best possible conditions. And even though the waves were still a bit rough, the weather was lovely and the sightings were plentiful!

We explored the Blasket Islands, some were blanketed in clouds and others looked so dramatic they reminded us of the Jurassic Park island.

We passed a beach where a grey seal colony lives.

They were so cute!! This one says ''hello''.

Next they took us over to the bird areas of the islands. Here we saw lots of razorbills and puffins, both beautiful and amazing animals! Sadly puffins are threatened with extinction. One of our guides said that if nothing changes we will be the last generation to see puffins in the wild. 😭😭

During the tour we also saw gannets, a peregrine falcon and Manx shearwaters. As for other non-bird related wildlife, we saw a bunch of common dolphins, including little ones, some swimming along with our boat!

And I kept the most incredible encounter for last. This has been a dream of mine for many, many years... WE SAW BASKING SHARKS 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

They described this first one we saw as 'a smaller specimen'. Mind you, when they are born they are already 1,5 - 2 meters long. So it was still an impressive sight! 🤩 We encountered some more basking sharks later on, but those went under rather quickly (perhaps they heard me say 'IT'S SO BIG!' lol). I did see a giant dorsal fin up close since one of them swam close to the boat (hence my exclamation 😆).

So yeah it was one of the best and most awesome days of my life and I wish I could go on tours like these at least once a week, because I absolutely ADORE basking sharks and yearn to see them up close all the time. (It takes lots of luck to get the place and timing right though.)

Feeling so blessed 🥰🥰🥰 (And at the same time craving more boat tours *heavy breathing* Maybe next year in Scotland... 👀)

[howshegoing]

05.05.2022_5:20 PM

[helene-brennan]

THE VILLAGE THAT WAS.... (2)

I love this walk, up a hill on one side of Croagh Mharhain.  It leads to the site of the village that was built for the set of the film Ryan’s Daughter, released in 1970.  I have written and posted photos about this walk a couple of years ago, see here. Actually I have these photos for a few months now, so they are slightly out of season. The walk up the hill has wonderful views of the Blasket…

[whateverbringsyouthroughthenight]

Great Blasket Island

[will-grahams-straitjacket]

I was looking for more info about Hoard and I happened to come across an article in Irish about how an Irish island called The Blasket had a connection to the popular limited series Howards End. And they for some reason included two pictures of Joe as a kid.

Relevant translated section of article:

"Several years ago, while filming the BBC TELEVISION series, The Ambassador (with Pauline Collins) in Dublin, director Anthony Quinn was in the hotel one night and saw Gerry Gregg's documentary 'Eighty Years Growing' on RTÉ. The story of Muiris Uí Shúilleabháin's life and the famous book he wrote the subject of that programme. Anthony spoke to Seamus Deasy, the cameraman who worked with him and discovered seamus was also the cameraman on Eighty Years Growing.

Anthony Quinn fell in love with The Blasket that night. A while later he visited his young son Joe and they both made five visits to the island. In fact they spent the night camping there. When I recalled that to Anthony recently on Twitter, the answer he sent me and his son was:

Written on your heart, isn't it @_joe_quinn ? — A J Quinn (@AnthonyQuinn) 14 November 2017

Joseph Quinn, son of Anthony Quinn, plays Mister Bast in the play Howards End."

Full article link: Joseph Quinn – from Great Blasket to Howards End – Tuairisc.ie

[pwlanier]

HAULING THE LOBSTER POTS, OFF BLASKET ISLANDS, COUNTY KERRY

IVAN SUTTON (B.1944)

Whytes

[aximili]

back at it again at dunquin looking out at the blasket islands :) amazing day to be there and then get a boozy hot chocolate at the most westerly pub in europe!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.17 (after 1950)

1950 – Lhamo Dondrub is officially named the 14th Dalai Lama. 1950 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 89 relating to the Palestine Question is adopted. 1953 – The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland, are evacuated to the mainland. 1957 – Vickers Viscount G-AOHP of British European Airways crashes at Ballerup after the failure of three engines on approach to Copenhagen Airport. The cause is a malfunction of the anti-icing system on the aircraft. There are no fatalities. 1962 – President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region. 1967 – Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports that he had been given on November 13, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson tells the nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking…We are making progress." 1968 – British European Airways introduces the BAC One-Eleven into commercial service. 1968 – Viewers of the Raiders–Jets football game in the eastern United States are denied the opportunity to watch its exciting finish when NBC broadcasts Heidi instead, prompting changes to sports broadcasting in the U.S. 1969 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, Finland to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides. 1970 – Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai Massacre. 1970 – Luna programme: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft. 1973 – Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook." 1973 – The Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military regime ends in a bloodshed in the Greek capital. 1983 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is founded in Mexico. 1986 – The flight crew of Japan Airlines Flight 1628 are involved in a UFO sighting incident while flying over Alaska. 1989 – Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins: In Czechoslovakia, a student demonstration in Prague is quelled by riot police. This sparks an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeds on December 29). 1990 – Fugendake, part of the Mount Unzen volcanic complex, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, becomes active again and erupts. 1993 – United States House of Representatives passes a resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement. 1993 – In Nigeria, General Sani Abacha ousts the government of Ernest Shonekan in a military coup. 1997 – In Luxor, Egypt, 62 people are killed by six Islamic militants outside the Temple of Hatshepsut, known as Luxor massacre. 2000 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills seven, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years. 2000 – Alberto Fujimori is removed from office as president of Peru. 2003 – Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure as the governor of California began. 2012 – At least 50 schoolchildren are killed in an accident at a railway crossing near Manfalut, Egypt. 2013 – Fifty people are killed when Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashes at Kazan Airport, Russia. 2013 – A rare late-season tornado outbreak strikes the Midwest. Illinois and Indiana are most affected with tornado reports as far north as lower Michigan. In all around six dozen tornadoes touch down in approximately an 11-hour time period, including seven EF3 and two EF4 tornadoes. 2019 – The first known case of COVID-19 is traced to a 55-year-old man who had visited a market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1974 – Death of Róisín Madigan O’Reilly in Dingle, Co Kerry. At age 13, she became the youngest member of Cumann na mBann.

Daughter to a German-born governess (E. Hessler) and an Irish Literature Lecturer, (E. O’Reilly) Madigan O’Reilly grew up speaking German, Irish and English and travelling sporadically to Potsdam to visit her mother’s affluent relations. Both her parents were staunch republicans. Her father wrote poems and articles for ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’ and, aged just 13, Madigan O’Reilly became the youngest…

[barbandmoe-ireland]

Day 7 continued…we visited the museum on the Great Blasket Island which was inhabited from prehistoric until 1953 when it was evacuated.. only 22 people still lived there , once it had been home to as many as 160 people. These people lived off the sea and were not effected by the great famine.

These boats were their means of transportation across the 3 miles of ocean which was often treacherous to the main land . They were framed in wood and wrapped with tarred canvas. The models of men here are made from wire mesh.

[tinyshe]

Port na bPúcaí (song of the spirits) is a slow air that purportedly comes from the Blasket Islands off the West coast of Ireland.   One of the common stories that goes along with the tune describes an old fiddler who lived by the sea in the Blasket islands in the 19th-century.  One night he awoke to hear other-worldly music in the darkness.  Certain he was hearing the voice of a spirit, he lay awake listening until it finally faded into the night - and then he took up his fiddle and reproduced it as well as he could. Was it a ghost?  Maybe humpback whales?  Maybe actually written ca. 1950 and the story made up to go with it? :) In any case, it's an oft-recorded slow air and we've taken our stab at it here. Ashley Horn - Mezzo-violin (tuned down 3 half-steps to EBF#C#) Daniel Horn - Uilleann Pipes in B (chanter by Brad Angus)

[howshegoing]

05.05.2022_4:53 PM

[helene-brennan]

FROM CLOGHER HEAD TO TEACH NA CILLE

FROM CLOGHER HEAD TO TEACH NA CILLE

Some weeks back I started this walk from Clogher Head. It’s not a long walk but, it just got too cold for me to finish it on that occasion. So, recently I did finish it, although I wasn’t best pleased with the light – being intermittently dull, cloudy, hazy and with occasional welcome short bursts of sunlight. This above photo of a view of Sybil shows the starting point, and not being impressed…