Overview
No community of a few hundred people anywhere has left a literary record like the Blasket Islands. Between the 1920s and 1930s a handful of islanders – Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig Sayers, Muiris Ó Súilleabháin – wrote first-hand accounts of their lives in Irish that are now read as classics, and then, in 1953, the last families were resettled on the mainland and the place fell silent. That double story, of a rich Gaelic culture and its end, is the reason to come.
The islands (Na Blascaodaí) lie about 2 km west of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, the most westerly land in Ireland. There are six main islands – Great Blasket (An Blascaod Mór), Inishtooskert, Inishvickillane, Inishnabro, Tearaght and Beginish – but only Great Blasket can be visited, and that’s where everything below happens. The group is a Special Area of Conservation and an Important Bird Area, with internationally important seabird colonies and Ireland’s largest grey-seal colony hauled out on the white strand.
A hard place to live
People were on Great Blasket from at least the late 16th century, on land the Norman-Irish Ferriter family had rented from the Earls of Desmond since around 1290. By the 1840s the population was somewhere near 150, swelled by tenants pushed off the mainland. It was never an easy living: the community survived on fishing, a little farming and seabird eggs, and the Atlantic could cut the island off for weeks at a time. That isolation, and a falling, ageing population, is what finally ended it. The last islanders were moved ashore in 1953, and plans floated afterwards to turn the island into a national park came to nothing.
What they left is the writing. If you read one book before you go, make it Ó Criomhthain’s The Islandman or Sayers’s Peig; the village you walk through is the one those books describe.
What to do on Great Blasket
The ferry gives you roughly four hours ashore, which is enough for the village, the beach and one good walk.
The village and the free guided tour
The boat lands below the abandoned village, where the roofless stone cottages still climb the hillside above An Trá Bán, the white strand. OPW guides from the Blasket Centre give a free guided tour of the old village, usually at noon and 2pm once enough people have come off the various ferries – it’s the single best thing to do here, so try to land in time for one. Among the ruins are the houses tied to the island writers.
The white strand and the seals
An Trá Bán is a genuine white-sand beach, and the rocks at its end hold Ireland’s largest grey-seal colony. Keep your distance, especially in autumn pupping season, and watch from above rather than walking in among them.
The ridge walk
For anyone fit and properly shod, a grassy track runs the length of the island out to its high point at Croaghmore (An Cró Mór), a roughly 4 km route each way with the open Atlantic on one side and the Dingle Peninsula on the other, the Tearaght lighthouse far out to the west. The ground is exposed and uneven; turn back in good time for your return sailing.
Wildlife from the water
Several operators run eco-tours by rigid inflatable around the archipelago from Dunquin, Ventry and Dingle, looking for common and bottlenose dolphins, porpoises, minke whales and the basking sharks that filter-feed off the islands in summer. The outer islands are rat-free, which matters for the ground-nesting seabirds – fulmars, guillemots, storm petrels, shearwaters and puffins among them. Inishvickillane, privately owned, even carries a herd of red deer.
Getting there
The ferry to Great Blasket leaves from Cé Dhún Chaoin (Dunquin Pier), reached off the R559 round the end of the peninsula. Street parking at the pier is free.
Blasket Island Ferries run the quickest crossing, about 20 minutes from Dunquin aboard the Lady Avalon, with set departures at 9.45am, 10.45am, 11.45am and 12.45pm and fixed return times for each. The season runs roughly from early May to early September. There are also longer ferry and combined eco-tour options from Ventry and Dingle Marina if you want time on the water as well.
One honest warning about the landing: at the island slipway everyone transfers from the ferry into a small eight-seater RIB to reach the shallow water. It’s a short hop, but it rules the trip out for anyone with serious mobility or heart problems, and for children under 7.
Practical information
Tickets – A return adult fare is €50, child €30, booked in advance through the ferry operator. There are no timed museum-style slots; you’re booking a specific sailing.
On the island – Camping is free and is the only accommodation; there are no cottages to rent and no electricity. Fresh water and toilets are by the village, and a small café runs in peak summer for simple food and tea. Bring your own water and supplies regardless.
What to wear and carry – Walking boots, full waterproofs and warm layers, whatever the forecast. The terrain is rough and the weather turns fast.
Weather – Sailings are entirely weather-dependent and cancel without much notice. Always have a wet-day alternative; the obvious one is the Blasket Centre at Dún Chaoin, which tells the whole island story and has a clifftop viewing platform looking straight across the Sound.
Nearby
- The Blasket Centre (Ionad an Bhlascaoid) – the OPW museum at Dún Chaoin; do this even if you make the island, ideally first.
- Dunmore Head – the mainland’s most westerly tip, directly opposite the islands, with a short headland walk.
- Coumeenoole Beach – the dramatic cove below Slea Head, a few minutes’ drive.
- Dingle town – traditional music, places to eat, and the base for most peninsula trips.
Check the ferry’s social media or call the morning you travel before driving all the way to Dunquin. If it’s blowing, see the village from the Blasket Centre’s platform and save the crossing for a calmer day; the island deserves to be seen in decent weather.