Crowds gather on Scattery Island

 

MORE than 1,000 people visited Scattery Island last weekend for the inaugural island Gathering festival. The tranquil island on the Shannon Estuary was resplendent under the weekend summer sun.

Dr Bernadette Whelan of the University of Limerick’s History Department was the guest speaker at the event, which was organised by the Scattery Island Heritage and Tourism Group.

“When I met the group for the first time, back in September, it was very clear that this weekend’s series of events would take place because this is a dedicated and committed group of people, with a shared interest, willing to work for the good of the local and wider community.

“For you living here in Kilrush, looking out on Scattery Island/Inis Cathaigh every day, you know that Scattery Island had its own people, the islanders, from the monks, to the fishermen, the farmers, the pilots, the teachers, men, women and children lived there until the late 1970s, when Bobbi and Patty McMahon left,” Ms Whelan said in her speech.

“It is unique with its round tower, cathedral and churches, the graveyard – teampall na marbh, the houses – from the O’Cahane Castle to the main settlement known as the street built mainly between 1841 and 1861. There is Scattery Light, the battery, St Senan’s well and grave. The school was open until 1948. It has places of worship, places of habitation, places of work, places of education and it has defensive structures. You also know it as a space – it is significant, in its own right, as an island in the River Shannon, an island along the Clare coast, located closest to Kilrush and across from Kerry,” she added.

“Scattery Island also occupies an important place in the national and international narrative. Inis Cathaigh experienced many of the main religious, political, economic and social developments in our past from invasion, to settlement, to eviction, to emigration. Fortunately, for us, so many of the buildings on the island are still standing, thanks to the National Monuments Service and Office of Public Works. Also, we don’t have to imagine what the island looked like either. Because of this wonderful photographic exhibition, we have an insight into what it looked like in past generations,” Ms Whelan stated.

A pair of medieval carvings, which disappeared from Scattery Island more than 150 years ago, were also brought to the island last weekend but have yet to be left there permanently.

The Scattery Island Heritage and Tourism Group learned that the stone artefacts were removed from the former monastic settlement by a sea captain during the mid-19th century.

They were found earlier this year when the group was contacted by a local family, who had the artefacts for safekeeping, having discovered them more than 50 years ago.

The artefacts have been verified professionally and dated to the 12th and early 15th centuries by medieval stone carvings expert Jim Higgins, Galway County Council heritage officer and Dr Catherine Swift, director of Irish Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.