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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | | Sherkin Island | |
Helen this week visits the Islands of Roaring Water Bay off West Cork in Ireland. Officially known as the Carbery Hundred Islands they are reached by ferry and private boat from the picturesque fishing village of Baltimore.
Some of the islands are no more than a knob of rock coated in gorse and bracken and bearded with seaweed; ten or so are big enough to have been inhabited in the past; four or five carry summer populations and in the case of the two largest islands, Sherkin and Cape Clear (the latter more correctly an off-shore island) there are year-round, vibrant communities.
The history of these islands is a history of a people that have to make a living and survive with the sea.
Helen begins our programme on the boat of Michael Murphy as they skim over the bay at twenty five knots heading for the Marine Station on Sherkin island. Run by Michael's father Matt, the marine station was one of the first to be set up in Ireland and has now been running for twenty eight years. Matt moved there with his wife Eileen and five children(to subsequently become seven) in 1975 to begin an adventure centre for youngsters but the science of Marine life soon overtook them and their future life was set.
The Marine Station is located on the North-West end of the island on 16 acres and has blossomed from a small laboratory into a complex of five labs., aquarium, Natural History Museum and a library of some 100,000 books, journals, reports, reprints, together with an herbarium of plants and seaweeds.
The aim of the station is long term monitoring of the sea and it relies on volunteer scientists who come to the island in April and stay until November.
It receives no state aid which according to Matt has been it's strength. It
gave them a freedom to chose the research that they decide is necessary and enabled them to continue monitoring projects such as the Rocky shore and Plankton projects over twenty five years.
Helen talked to Matt as they wondered around the station talking about it's humble beginnings and how despite the death of his wife Eileen Matt never thought of giving up but remained determined to build Sherkin island into one of Irelands most important Marine monitoring sites.
Helen walked along the lanes of Sherkin with Matt's daughter Audrey talking about life on the island as they made their way to one of the "Rocky Shore" monitoring sites. Audrey told Helen about her role in the Murphy dynasty -she runs an outreach project bringing the fascination of life in the sea to schools. Education is a cornerstone of Sherkin -it's one of the founding principles of the whole Station.
Helen finishes her visit to the island at the oyster beds of Michael and Robbie Murphy -as well as helping their father with running the station the boys have built up the oyster business over fourteen years into a thriving concern.
Helen then set out with Cormac Levis on his re-constructed Lobster Boat for a sail over the bay. The "Marie-Colette" has been built as an exact replica of the boats that used to fish these waters from the 1800's until well into the nineteen fifties.
The main occupations for the Islanders has been fishing and farming, in the last century the Heir Island Lobster boat unique to the island (and built on the Island) was used for Lobster fishing all along the south West Coat from Ballycotton in the East to Crookhaven in the West.
Lobsters were essential to the economy of island life and the men were away at sea for weeks on end trawling around the coast. The
boats were completely open and had a crew of three but the life was so dangerous that the crew all came from different families because as Cormac explained an accident at sae could mean that whole families would loose their main bread winner.
The men used to haul the pots every two hours leaving little time for sleeping -life was hard and the weather often meant the crew spent days on end in wet clothing.
Cormac has written a book on the history of the Lobster boats in Roaring water bay called the "Towelsail Yawls".
Cormac Levis has spent many years collecting folklore and memories from the older generation of seafarers, and tells for the first time the remarkable story of these boats and the men who fished them, providing a fascinating insight into a unique way of life that had been in danger of passing unrecorded into oblivion. The author also puts forward evidence of the existence of a pre-Famine lobsterfleet, and details the modernisation and eventual demise of the lobsterboats in the 1950s and 1960s.
Helen's bout of island hoping ends at Cape Clear island where she meets Michael John Cadogan and Mary O'Driscoll.
Michael runs the island co-operative whilst Mary runs the pub. They tell Helen about the struggles and attractions of island life. Mary's grandmother left the island to live on the mainland but Mary married an islander and after two generations she has returned and she loves it.
The small community and familiarity that island life brings suits her but she does admit that island children probably need to spend some time on the mainland to get a wider perspective on life-living on an island though physically challenging can be quite cosseted.
Cape Clear is Ireland's southernmost inhabited island, 3 miles long by 1 mile wide, lies 8 miles off the coast of West Cork. The island is accessible by boat from Baltimore. Three miles west of the island stands the solitary Fastnet Rock. To the northwest stretches the Mizen Head, the mainland's most southerly point.
Cape's wild romantic scenery, its sparkling harbours, its cliffs and bogs and lake, all contribute to the island's unspoiled charm. Heather, gorse and wild flowers cover the rugged hills. Myriad stonewalls have a patchwork effect on the varied landscape. Megalithic standing stones and a 5000 year-old passage grave, a twelfth century church ruin, a fourteenth century O'Driscoll castle, cannonaded in the early 1600s, suggest times past. Saint Ciarán, the island's patron saint, is allegedly the earliest of Ireland's four pre-Patrician saints.
Next week: Helen will be celebrating harvest home at Selgrave Manor in Oxfordshire.
This week's competition
Last week's question was - The cricket uses his wings to make his chirring noise. What is the technical name for this?
It's Michael Cadogan who sets this weeks question and it's a tricky one .
St Ciaran the island's patron saint was on Cape island before St.Patrick came to Ireland. How many years before St.Patrick came to Ireland was St.Cairan on Cape island.
This week's question is: The cricket uses his wings to make his chirring noise. What is the technical name for this?
Submit your entry by emailing [email protected]
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