Overview
The Copeland Islands are three uninhabited islands three miles north of Donaghadee, sitting where the North Channel meets the Irish Sea: Great Copeland (Big Island), Lighthouse Island (Old Island), and Mew Island. The name most likely comes from the de Coupland family, Norman settlers who held land here in the twelfth century, though some trace it to the Old Norse Kaupmanneyjar, ‘merchant islands’. Fitting, either way: until the twentieth century the islands were a working store for smugglers running tobacco and spirits into County Down.
They are designated an Area of Special Scientific Interest for their breeding seabirds, waders, coastal plants and geology. If you have one reason to make the crossing, it’s the birds in early summer, when Lighthouse Island is loud with terns.
Lighthouses and a lost community
A coal-fired beacon was lit here around 1715 to guide ships through a busy and dangerous stretch of water, burning through roughly 400 tons of coal a year. A proper stone lighthouse followed on Lighthouse Island in 1813. It did its job until 1884, when it was superseded by the Mew Island Lighthouse – still an active, automated beacon today. The 1813 tower was left to weather, and its walls still stand.
For a while the islands supported a real community. Lighthouse Island alone once held about 100 people, enough for a schoolmaster with 28 pupils. Census records return the same surnames again and again – mostly Cleggs and Emersons – families who farmed the three islands together, ferrying animals between them to spread the grazing. The population dwindled over the following generations until the islands were left to the birds.
In 1954 the naturalist Arnold Benington set up the Copeland Bird Observatory in the former keeper’s cottage on Lighthouse Island, one of the oldest bird observatories in Britain and Ireland. It still runs, ringing and recording migrants each season.
Seabirds and wildlife
The islands carry internationally important breeding colonies. The headline is the Arctic tern – the largest colony in Ireland. Manx shearwaters nest here in numbers too, coming and going under cover of dark, and Northern Ireland’s first successful Mediterranean gull pair bred on the Copelands. Eider ducks and black guillemots round out the seabird list, and puffins turn up among them.
Grey and common seals haul out on the surrounding reefs, and in clearer water you might catch a porpoise, a dolphin, or, if you are lucky, a whale. Bring binoculars – you will get far more from the trip with them than without.
Flora
The plant life is worth a look for the record it holds: Lighthouse Island is the southern limit in Europe for Scots lovage and the northern limit in Ireland for sea purslane. The exposed rock and short, rabbit-grazed turf suit hardy specialists like English stonecrop. Offshore, 56 species of marine algae have been recorded around the islands.
Getting there and boat trips
Access is by boat from Donaghadee harbour, and only in the calmer months – summer trips generally run May to September, sea conditions permitting. Nelsons Boats runs crossings from the harbour; a long-standing operator, The Brothers, has since retired, so check who is sailing before you plan a day around it. The islands themselves are open and free to land on; you’re paying for the boat.
The Irish Sea can turn quickly here, so check the forecast and the sea state before you commit. There are no facilities of any kind on the islands – no toilets, no shelter, no shop – so bring everything you need, including water and waterproofs.
Practical tips
- Best time to visit: April to August for the seabird colonies at full tilt. Winter crossings are harder to come by, but reward you with seals on the rocks and the islands to yourself.
- Underfoot: the ground is uneven turf and exposed coast. Sturdy footwear, and give the smaller islands high winds a miss.
- Conservation: this is a protected ASSI. Keep to worn paths, keep well clear of nesting birds, and take nothing away with you.
- Dogs: best left at home between April and August, when the birds are breeding.
Before or after the boat, Ballycopeland Windmill near Donaghadee is the only working windmill left in East Down and has a visitor centre and café – useful context, and a dry option if the sea has other ideas. Donaghadee’s own lighthouse, built in 1836, was the first in Ireland to be lit by electricity, and it’s a two-minute walk from where the boats leave.