Overview
In 1967 John Lennon saw a newspaper advert for an island off the west coast of Ireland, sent the Beatles’ manager Alistair Taylor to bid for it at auction, and bought Dorinish for about £1,700. That single transaction is why anyone outside Clew Bay has heard of a 19-acre lump of boulder clay (officially 19.74 acres, or 7.99 hectares) with no buildings, no ferry and no facilities of any kind.
Dorinish (Irish: Deoirinis) is really two small islands joined by a natural stone causeway, sitting among the drowned drumlins of Clew Bay in County Mayo. The whole appeal is the vantage point. From the high knoll you get Clare Island and the open Atlantic to the west, Inishgort Lighthouse and the Nephin Mountains to the north, Westport Quay to the east and Croagh Patrick filling the southern sky. If you only do one thing here, climb to that top point near sunset, when the west-facing slope catches the light.
How John Lennon ended up owning it
Before the Beatles, the island was bought from the Westport Harbour Board, which had advertised it for sale; sailing ships had long used it for its stone. Lennon got planning permission from Mayo County Council to build a holiday cottage and shipped over the psychedelic-painted gypsy caravan from the Sgt. Pepper era to serve as a base. The cottage was never built. He visited only a handful of times, the last with Yoko Ono, and never came back after his death in 1980.
In 1970 Lennon invited Sid Rawle – the self-styled ‘King of the Hippies’ – and Timi Walsh to set up a commune. For two years roughly 25 people, growing vegetables and raising children, called themselves the Diggers and lived in tents on a windswept, treeless island. It went about as well as that sounds. Westport was not delighted: in March 1971 the Connaught Telegraph ran the headline ‘Hippie republic under siege’. The end came in 1972 when a knocked-over gas lamp, fanned by an Atlantic gale, burned down the supply tent. Rawle’s verdict afterwards was blunt: ‘Dorinish was heaven and it was hell.’
After Lennon’s death Yoko Ono sold the island for nearly £30,000 and gave the proceeds to an Irish orphanage. Local farmers Michael and John-Joe Gavin bought it for grazing, which is still what it’s used for. The occasional artistic project lands here too – an arts group held a summer school called Aerial Blue on the island in July 2011.
The island today
Dorinish had 13 inhabitants at the 1841 census, 15 in 1871 and just 6 by 1891; it has been uninhabited since 1901, the commune years aside. Today it’s privately owned and grazed by sheep and cattle, with no surviving structures – just the faint outlines of the cleared garden patches the Diggers left behind. Seabirds work the cliffs and the bay is rich in mussels and oysters, a reminder of the working coast this once was.
Getting there
There is no scheduled ferry, and that is the main thing to plan around. The island can be reached in about 15 minutes from Rosmoney, Murrisk or Lecanvey piers if you arrange a private charter or a local boat; in summer, kayaking and island-hopping tours run from Westport Quay. The nearest airport is Ireland West Airport Knock, 56 km away.
If you can’t sort a landing – and most casual visitors won’t – the honest alternative is better than it sounds. Westport Cruises runs round trips of Clew Bay from May to October aboard the Spiorad Naomh Phádraig, passing Dorinish and, in summer, a seal colony of 400-odd animals. You don’t set foot on the island, but you get the story and the panorama without organising a boat.
Practical information
- Access: Privately owned but open to visitors who arrange their own sea landing. No ferry, no booking system – you sort the boat.
- Facilities: None. No toilets, shelter or shop. Bring water, food and a bag for your rubbish. The ground is uneven and the cliffs are steep, so it’s no place for pushchairs or anyone unsteady on their feet.
- Best season: Late spring to early autumn for the calmest seas and longest daylight.
- Admission: Free, once you’ve arranged transport.
For boat operators or to arrange a private landing, the island’s official site is dorinish.com.
Nearby
- Clare Island: The big island guarding the mouth of the bay, with a medieval abbey and Granuaile’s castle. Clare Island
- Westport: Back on the mainland, a planned Georgian town with Westport House and the marina where most boats leave. Westport
- Inishraher (Maharishi Island of World Peace): Another Clew Bay drumlin with a peace-and-love story – a purpose-built meditation retreat rather than a commune.
Time it for an evening landing if you can get one. The garden lines of a doomed 1970s utopia are more poignant with Croagh Patrick going pink behind them, and the light off the west cliffs is the one thing here no photograph quite prepares you for.