The crossing
The 14 stone pillars that march across Cummeen Strand are the whole story of Coney Island in miniature. They were put up around 1845, lined up with the Black Rock lighthouse so night travellers could find the safe line, and they went in after a run of drownings – including the island’s own owner, William Dorrin, lost on the strand in 1823. Read that as a warning, not a piece of trivia: people still get stranded out here every year.
Cross on foot if you can. At low tide a sand track of about 2.5 km opens across the strand, and the walk takes roughly 40 minutes each way, with Strandhill to the south and Benbulben to the north. Waterproof footwear is essential – the sand near the high-tide mark stays soft and cool even in July. You can drive it or take a wide-tyred bike across, but you lose the best part – and whether on foot or on wheels, stay close to the pillar line: the sand away from it is soft, and it claims cars most years. If the tide’s wrong, a water taxi runs from Rosses Point pier and does the crossing in about five minutes; it’s operated by Sligo Boat Charters, who take bookings online – the boat is chartered rather than priced per person, so confirm the cost when you book.
Before you set out, text CONEY to 51155 on an Irish mobile (or 81400 from the UK) for that day’s safe crossing times from the RNLI – treat that text, not a guess from the beach, as your timing authority. The safe window sits around low water: cross on the falling tide or at low tide, budget the 40 minutes each way plus your time on the island, and never start across if there’s water on the strand, because it floods again well before high water. If you do get caught out, don’t race the tide – call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coast Guard.
What’s on the island
Coney is bigger than it looks from the shore – about 1½ miles long by ¾ mile across – and it takes its name from coinín, the Irish for rabbit, after the warren that still riddles the dunes. The landscape carries the marks of long settlement: fairy forts and the earthwork remains of ring forts, and the holy sites of St Patrick’s Well and St Patrick’s Wishing Chair. Dry-stone walls run between empty strands, and the whole place has the stillness of somewhere that has emptied out over a century.
Because it has. In the mid-1800s the island supported around 124 people and a school of 45 children; by 2006 there were six residents, and by 2022 just one permanent inhabitant remained, from a family who trace their time here to the 1750s. The grid finally reached the island by underground cable in 1999. The folklore is thick – tales of fairies, mermaids and spirits, a washed-up whale, and the ‘Miracle at Coney’, the Day of the Rabbits – much of it written down in the 1937–38 Schools’ Folklore collection. A separate legend has it that an Irish captain carried the name across the Atlantic to Coney Island in New York; historians aren’t convinced, but locals enjoy the claim.
The pub, and the practicalities
There’s one pub, Michael J. Ward’s (older sources call it McGowans), and it keeps island hours: sporadic, roughly Thursday to Sunday in summer. It’s less a business than the island’s front room – a few provisions, the odd trad session, reportedly even pizza – and it’s where you’ll actually meet anyone. Don’t count on it being open; carry your own water and food, and take all your litter back with you, because there are no other shops or public toilets out here.
Free parking sits at the Cummeen Strand turn-off near Strandhill – get there early on a fine summer day, as it fills fast. Dogs are welcome but keep them on a lead for the ground-nesting birds. Give yourself one to three hours on the island; any longer and you’re watching the tide.
Getting there
From Sligo town, take the R292 Strandhill road west, and after Scarden graveyard turn onto the signposted road to the Cummeen Strand crossing. Staying at Rosses Point instead? The water-taxi pier is in the harbour, a short walk from the village. Either way, check the tide before you leave – it’s the one detail that turns a good afternoon here into a bad one.