#Blasket Island

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in Irish History | 3 April:

1793 – Birth of scientific writer and lecturer, Dionysius Lardner, in Dublin. 1798 – Writer John Banim, who was praised by Yeats as a writer who tried to ‘make one see life plainly,’ is born in Kilkenny. 1807 – Maurice FitzGerald, MP for Co Kerry, resigns as Commissioner of the Treasury (UK) over the issue of Catholic relief. 1846 – Death of balladeer and storyteller, Michael Moran, aka Zozimus,…

[whateverbringsyouthroughthenight]

Great Blasket Island

[vox-anglosphere]

The dramatic coastline of Slea Head on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula

[dopescissorscashwagon]

Cottages on the Blasket Islands. off the west coast of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. Great Blasket Island, was abandoned in 1954 due to population decline & is best known for a number of Irish language writers who vividly described their way of life. Wiki. NMP.

Click on photo if blurred

📸 by Tracy Hogan @HoganSOG/via X

[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…

[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... 👀)

[shipwreckguy]

ARMAVEN TRES

FV Armaven Tres disabled by engine room fire; 1 injured #ireland #fishing #rnli

Photo: lavozdegalicia.es On the early morning of November 6, the 33.5 meter long, 301 gt fishing vessel Armaven Tres (IMO: 9144641) caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Kerry, Ireland some 25 miles west of the Blasket Islands. The blaze had broken out on the vessel’s engine room and the crew requested urgent assistance.  The fire had disabled the Armaven Tres engine and the trawler…

[glynjohnsfurcoat]

⬇️ i spent a night as one of THREE living human beings on one of those islands it was so fucking magical. and i met two wild donkeys OUHGGHH... that sounds fancy but it was a hostel

[the-hobgoblins]

Their preparations took three days.

Three days for Katie to smuggle out materials from her lab at the Ministry of Magic, for her to fill up pages upon blank pages with magical equations and alchemical calculations, for her to nearly burn her flat down molding a rune-etched round vessel out of glass while Rue blasted it with a scorching beam of dazzling blue-white flame, Chickadee tittering at her ankles in delight.

Three days for Rue to track down an old contact from her street heist days, a hedge witch broker who peddled in objects meant for hasty getaways—discarded and used portkeys that were refurbished and sold for unsanctioned travel across short, one-way distances. 

And three days for Oz to work up the nerve to dial a number he never thought he would call again.

They spent the final night passing a bottle of liquor between them, going over every detail of their intricate plan over and over and over again until they could all recite it in their sleep—not that any of them got a wink of it.

Then the day arrived before any of them could stop and really think about the insanity of all of it. How unlikely their chances at success were. 

They bid each other a brief goodbye before going their separate ways—Rue and Katie to the warehouse to which they’d tracked Inez using a pair of the voodoo witch’s earrings, and Oz to make sure everything was set up for their arrival in an hour’s time.

An Tiaract, a tiny island steep with rocks among the uninhabited Blasket Islands off the Western coast of Ireland, was a harsh place that Oz unfortunately knew quite well. Nestled atop the rocky precipice of a seaside cliff was a decrepit, abandoned lighthouse that Morrigan had long ago fashioned into a holding cell, of sorts. The room at the top was built into the cliffside itself, with a metal chair bolted to the ground and heavy chains attached to the floor, the stone walls, the ceiling—an interrogation chamber, Oz had witnessed it used as before. Or a place for those who disobeyed Morrigan to be taught a lesson.

Oz’s travel token was literally that—a rusty token from an arcade that had closed years ago, and he grasped it with trembling fingers before he was dumped unceremoniously at the coordinates the magic had been assigned to deliver him. The brand mark that still adorned his wrist flared up with heat in a way Oz hadn’t felt in many years as he pressed a hand against the front door of the lighthouse and pushed it open with a low, groaning creak. It was dark inside, and quiet, and bitterly cold—a layer of dust coated the interior, as if the building had stood empty for some time, and that fact alone calmed Oz’s wildly racing pulse just a smidge as he climbed the stairs up, and up, and up.

But his reprieve from terror was short-lived; Oz opened the door to the holding cell at the top of the lighthouse and found there was indeed someone there, smiling like a cat would to a cornered canary. Waiting for him.

“Hiya, Morrigan.”

“Ozzie…” she purred, studying him, trailing closer to him like a vulture to a carcass. “…thought you'da known better ’n ta come crawlin’ back here…Still gettin’ into trouble?”

Oz swallowed, and aimed for a flippant shrug that more closely resembled a wince. “Oh, ya know me, Mor—trouble always seems ta follow me around…”

Morrigan grinned knowingly at that, and raised a hand that slammed the door behind Oz shut. She didn’t stop moving until she’d stopped right inside Oz’s space, her pixie face flickering gruesomely in the room’s dim lighting. Oz drew in a breath, and Morrigan chuckled, reaching out to drag her nails lightly along the edge of his curly hair, down his neck, dipping toward the center of his chest to halt precisely at the tip of the tattoo that adorned his abdomen, hidden beneath his clothes. Morrigan’s ministrations caused an involuntary shiver to travel up his whole body, all the way from his toes. “You haven't changed a bit, have ya? Still the same needy boy…” Oz was too familiar, intimately familiar with this tone; Morrigan wasn’t asking for an answer and he didn’t give her one. 

Her hand closed around his left wrist and flipped it over, drawing it toward her to examine. She ran her fingertips lightly, almost lovingly, over the faded brand mark that was still etched onto Oz’s skin. He shivered again.

Then Morrigan’s expression darkened in an instant, and she dug her thumbnail into the center of the mark. Her magic pulsed through him, lighting up all his nerves with a relentless current, a rapid oscillation between pain and pleasure that shifted too frequently between the two to allow him to feel either. This, too, was magic Oz knew well—magic he still dreamt about sometimes, and woke up gasping in a pool of cold sweat.

His teeth ground together and he squirmed at the onslaught of overstimulation until his uncontrolled trembling knocked him to his knees. “Please—” he panted over the deafening roar of his own blood in his ears.

Morrigan released him and Oz crumbled downward, catching himself with his palms pressed down in the dirt so that he cowered before Morrigan on his hands and knees, like a dog that had been kicked. She gripped one hand in the back of his hair and sneered, in that voice that was affection and ownership and wrath all wrapped up in one, “Cé leis a mbaineann tú?”

“You–!” Oz choked out desperately, a strangled sort of sob, “–i gcónaí, please, I swear–”

“Agus nach mbeidh tú thréigean arís mé?” Morrigan demanded, but before Oz was forced to give her any sort of answer, there was a suctioning sound of air in the middle of the room, followed by the sound of feet landing hard onto stone. Oz heard Rue give a nauseated groan, and Katie muttered something about a spell not holding her for long before there were grunts of effort, a body being dragged, chains rattling as they were fastened into place. 

Morrigan dropped her hold on Oz’s hair with a slight hiss of annoyance and Oz slumped in relief, but didn’t look up. “And these must be the friends Ozzie spoke so highly of…?” Morrigan mocked, her attention momentarily drifting from the heap that was Oz on the floor as she walked leisurely toward her interrogation chair, to better examine their prisoner.

Oz managed to push himself up to a shaky crouch and look up in time to see Rue and Katie backing away from a chained-up, unconscious Inez while Morrigan got closer—Rue with her hands raised in a defensive tut-ready position, and Katie with her wand held out in front of her—though thankfully they’d both heeded Oz’s precautionary earlier warnings about Morrigan’s many and powerful magical enhancements that protected her from most minor offensive spells made against her, and neither tried to cast anything at her just yet.

Katie met his eyes, questioning and impatient, and Oz shook his head at her frantically—if he could just draw Morrigan’s attention back on him, convince her it was him alone she wanted to unleash her fury on, maybe it would give the women a chance to—

Oz’s mouth fell open in shock as Morrigan’s body tumbled unconscious to the ground with a heavy thud, a fucking baseball bat pulled from gods-knew where raised aloft and triumphant in Rue’s hands. Katie cackled at the brutal yet—Oz had to admit, effective—simplicity of it, while Rue just shrugged and said, “Ya said no magic, innit.”

They made quick work of dragging Morrigan to a corner of the room, and though Rue encircled her with a ring of flames as a temporary precaution, they all agreed the ruthless coven leader would be pissed as all the seven hells when she woke up, so they needed to work fast. 

And so, from the magically enchanted backpack from which Rue had, presumably, stashed the baseball bat, Katie reached inside and retrieved the glass bottle wrapped in cloth and carefully handed it over to Oz. It would need to be charged up with a fucktonne of ambient magic, and they didn’t have much time—and so Oz’s job now was to find and siphon the entire stash of ambient-imbued magical batteries that Morrigan had squirreled away in this place for a rainy day, while the girls kept Inez…occupied, for as long as they were able to give him.

@katiethxrne

Everyone thought it would be the Boy. Or the tronpe, if the Spirits demanded a daughter. But when the shaken bones were scattered on the floor, revealing Inez’s name, she wasn’t surprised. 

Inez knew she was destined for greatness. She knew she was powerful, more-so than the others. She was more clever, more attractive, more skilled. 

She’d chosen Rozalie to prepare her, aiding in the deceiver’s debasement. While she bathed in milk, the other witch poured salts and petals into the tub, scrubbed her arms, and hand-fed her fruits so ripe, the juice spilled down her chin. Roz had a natural cotton robe for her to don when she left the bath, and it was that robe she was wearing as her Sisters, the Lost Daughter and the Boy left for home, leaving Inez behind in the space they had deliberately created for this event.

Mambo had left her a chair, which was delightful, as after many hours of meditating, Inez's knees began to ache. The magic-thieves truly were taking their sweet time to find her, despite the obvious trails they had left behind. She entertained herself by singing, an old tune that she'd learned as a child. Something about the Spirits guiding their hands. How poignant that years since learning the song, she would become one of its subjects.

Mid-lyric, Inez paused, feeling the familiar warmth in her chest that indicated her guiding Spirits were telling her something. A warning. I'll be home soon, Sisters. The door to the warehouse swung open, and Inez smiled, sitting up in her chair.

Despite all of the predictions, they looked different than Inez had anticipated. The short one was ghostly pale, a tiny wisp of a thing. The taller one had tanned skin, a thing of beauty, a waste in this forsaken country. Inez opened her mouth to greet them, toying with her prey, but the shorter one raised her conduit, and there was barely a flash before she felt a pulling lurch in her stomach, and all three were whisked away.

[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,…

[sumbluespruce]

I want to live there

9/24 Blasket Island

[alexlynchwildlife]

Puffins at the Blasket Islands in Ireland with Dingle Boat Tours

[arwamachine]

AAAAAA thank you so much! And yes, the island DOES exist! Here's a picture of some lovely ruins (seals just visible in the background):

This story by @arwamachine is such a good read, and the island actually excist. A must read.

[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

[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.

[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.