Inishkea Islands

The Inishkea Islands (Irish: Inis Cé)^[1][2] are situated off the coast of the Belmullet peninsula in County Mayo in Ireland. They are believed to be named after a saint that lived there, called Saint Kea. There are two main islands – Inishkea North and Inishkea South.

In the 19th century, the islands were notable for the pagan religious traditions practised there. One tradition involved a small terracotta statue of a god or goddess known as the Godstone, or Naomhóg in Irish,^[3][4] which was worshipped as an idol. It is possible that the remoteness of the islands somehow preserved some form of pre-Christian worship. In the early 1900s, the islands were populated by more than 300 people, who were monolingual Irish speakers, but the island gradually depopulated after 10 fishermen drowned at sea during a fierce storm in October 1927.^[5][6][7] Two people live on the island now, but the population increases to about fifteen during the summer months from May to September.^[8]

Locator map of Inishkea North

Locator map of Inishkea South

History

Piracy

In the mid 1800s, numerous instances of piracy occurred from the shores of Inishkea. ^[9] The Mullet region was ravaged by the potato famine, but the population of the Inishkea islands kept rising.^[10]

Pagan religion and The Godstone

The evangelical Irish Protestant Robert Jocelyn wrote the following about the unusual religious practices of the islands' inhabitants in 1851:

"...save during the few and necessarily short visits of the clergyman of the parish, seldom have they heard of eternal life as the free gift of God through Jesus Christ, and even these visits were unprofitable from their total ignorance of English... their worship consists in occasional meetings at their chief's house, with visits to a holy well, called in their native tongue, Derivla... Here the absence of religion is filled with the open practice of Pagan idolatry... In the South Island, in the house of a man named Monigan, a stone idol, called in the Irish 'Neevougi' has been from time immemorial religiously preserved and worshipped. This god in appearance resembles a thick roll of home-spun flannel, which arises from the custom of dedicating a dress of that material to it, whenever its aid is sought; this is sewed on by an old woman, its priestess, whose peculiar care it is."^[11]

In 1940 English author T. H. White visited the islands and learned the tale of what called the "Neevougi" (probably Naomhóg, roughly translating to "little saint"). According to White, the inhabitants of the islands credited the stone with calming weather, speeding the growth of potatoes, and quelling fire, but that it had allegedly been cast into the sea in the 1890s by one Fr. O'Reilly.^[11] White's discoveries - which include encounters with pirates, the theft of the stone from North to South Inishkea by islanders jealous of its potato-growing properties, a thrice (or once) annual ceremony where the stone was re-"clothed" in new cloth, and the niche in the wall of a south Inishkea hut where the Naomhóg had formerly resided - are recorded in his book The Godstone and the Blackymor, which was based upon his contemporary journal.^[12][13]

Flora and fauna

The islands are also home to a number of bird species- the geese of the island's name are barnacle geese. In addition, the islands have wheatears, rock pipits and fulmars. Lapwing breed on the island and peregrine falcons hunt for prey. There is evidence of rabbits on the island. The islands have no trees and are composed almost entirely of machair with outcrops of rock. They are crisscrossed by a number of stone walls that provide some shelter for nesting birds.