Islands of Ireland: Beginish Island, the small island with a big history (original) (raw)

By Dan MacCarthy

Approaching the oddly-shaped Beginish Island (Beiginis) off Co Kerry, the mariner is confronted with a long low cliff of several metres in height with nowhere to land except for the fringes of a rocky shore.

This seeming-cliff belies the fascinating interior of an island of huge cultural significance in Ireland. Landing on the north side on a magnificent golden beach which forms the centre of an isthmus the visitor can see why the island played a huge part in the logistical movement of the Vikings.

With some half-buried houses, some overgrown and possibly more buried beneath the sand, the settlement at Canroe was a significant staging post for the Scandinavians as they travelled up and down the coast looking for places to establish bases. One such base was at Dún Mainne whose precise origins are unknown (possible Castlemaine) but it is known to have been a longphort — a large permanent base.

The Canroe cluster of eight houses dating from the 9th to the 11th centuries has a building style known as ‘grubenhaus’ which is typical of Scandinavian and Germanic buildings. The rune (pre-Latin) stone over the door of one of the dwellings declares ‘Lir, Risti, Stin Thina, + Munuikil Risti’ which was deciphered as ‘Lir Erected This Stone + Munuikil Carved the Runes’. Both of the names are Norse and are the only Viking settlers in Kerry of whom there is a named record.

The inscription indicates a transition from a Viking to a Christian lifestyle and is evidence of a Hiberno-Scandinavian culture, wrote Donnchadh Ó Corráin in the Iveragh Peninsula: A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry. The rune stone was removed from the island and is now in the Fitzgerald’s Park museum in Cork.

The enclosure was partly excavated by Prof Michael J O’Kelly of UCC in the 1950s. His team discovered knives, a spoon, and bronze pins and combs. O’Kelly’s conclusion was that the outpost was of a peaceable nature and that essentially the people who lived there farmed and fished.

Beginish was once home to 84 people in the mid-19th century whose farms ran down to the water’s edge. The island is now unpopulated. The final residents, two elderly brothers, Jim and Mike Casey, departed in 1996 though a few of the houses are still used as holiday homes. On the south shore there is a small cluster of houses, which could almost be described as a terrace. This includes the home of the parents of former Kerry GAA star Mick O’Connell. The O’Connells left the island in 1935 and young Mick was born on Valentia in 1935.

GAA legend Mick O'Connell

He went on to win four All-Irelands.

To the north of Beginish is the tiny and grassy Lamb Island while to the east lies the extraordinary Church Island whose dimensions you could walk in 20 paces and which has the ruins of a seventh century monastery. South is the comparatively enormous Valentia Island while to the east the River Ferta flows past Caherciveen and empties into Valentia Harbour.

Two peninsulas complete the geography of the bay: Doulous Head, beyond which the Atlantic heaves, and Renard Point from where a car ferry carries passengers to Valentia Island within a few hundred metres of Beginish.

Beginish has a magnificent beach which is very popular with Valentia daytrippers in the summer. Swimmers on the annual 6.5km swim around the island will pass the beach. Another prominent of the island is a structure known as the ‘pilots lookout’ from where ships that needed guidance into Valentia Harbour could be spotted. There is another Beginish which forms part of the Blaskets archipelago and several more Inishbegs around the country.

The predominant use of the island today is for sheep farming and apart from the occasional daytripper they have the place to themselves. A few hundred metres from the western tip across the sound is the imposing Valentia Island lighthouse at Cromwell Point from where lighthousekeepers observed seafaring traffic travelling around Beginish.

How to get there:

- Daytrips from Knightstown on Valentia; valentiaisland.ie, 087 3866619, Sean Curtin

Other: The Iveragh Peninsula: A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry. Editors John Crowley and John Sheehan, Cork University Press