The book describes all of the inner islands of Clew Bay, including Inishraher, which is now a “Maharishi Capital of the Global Headquarters of World Peace” for the Transcendental Meditation organisation, and Inishturk Beg, which was bought and developed by the millionaire Nadim Sadek. Using references like ordnance survey maps from 1848, field research and interviews, the national archives and dozens of internet sources, I was able to piece together the first complete picture of the bay. At the last count in 2011, there were just 25 people living on six inner islands, and the population of Clare Island had dropped to just 168. I researched census records going back before the famine years in the mid-19th century and found that in 1841 there were over 1,500 people living on 35 inner islands of the bay, and another 1,600 on Clare Island alone. As there are another 141 named islands in the bay, along with countless unnamed tidal islands and drowned drumlins, I felt it was time to memorialise these. In researching this book, I was surprised to find that while Clew Bay is often mentioned as a stunning example of a “drumlin swarm”, virtually nothing had previously been written the social history and geography of these islands with the exception of Clare Island. Local lore suggests that there is one island for each day of the year. Its swarm of drumlins is unlike anything else in western Europe. It is one of nature’s great spectacles and it only takes a few minutes’ climb on Croagh Patrick to see why. It isn’t hard to be inspired by this part of the world. Photograph: Matt Kavanaghĭorinish (pronounced “Dorinch” locally) is just one of many named islands and large rocks in Clew Bay described in my new book, Croagh Patrick and the Islands of Clew Bay. Michael Cusack: Clew Bay is a stunning example of a drumlin swarm, but virtually nothing has been written of the social history and geography of its 141 named islands except Clare IslandĬlew Bay forms a backdrop for pilgrims on The Reek, or Croagh Patrick, in Co Mayo. He later agreed to allow Sid Rawle, the “King of the Hippies”, to establish a commune on the island. John Lennon had earlier arranged for a wooden “gypsy caravan” painted in psychedelic colours to be brought from London and floated out to the island on a purpose built raft as a temporary home. ![]() ![]() ![]() She was swooped upon by nesting terns and swore never to return. Local legend has it that when Yoko Ono had a different experience when she first stepped on the isolated island of Dorinish in the late 1960s. The great 19th-century author William Thackeray wrote of Clew Bay, “…the bay and the Reek, which sweeps down to the sea, and the hundred isles in it, were dressed up in gold and purple and crimson, with the whole cloudy west in a flame.
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