Booking Office Details

Address: Dunquin Harbour
Telephone: +353 (85) 2805202
eMail: blasketislandferries@hotmail.com
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Important:

Our ferries will be running as per usual from our base in Dunquin harbour. For any queries please contact us through the details on the left of this page. Thank you for your continued support.

Blasket Island Ferries

Brief History

The most Westerly lands in Europe are a unique group of islands off the coast of Kerry known as "The Blaskets".

The name "Blaskets" is a mystery and nobody knows how or why the group of Islands came to be known as "The Blaskets". One suggestion is that it originates from the Norse word "brasker" which means "a dangerous place".

Although first thought to be inhabited over a thousand years ago by a monastic settlement the earliest written record of the Blasket Islands was recently discovered in an archive in Samancas, Spain. The document records people living on the Great Blasket Island as far back as 1597. The ships Captain which left the document refers to the Islands as "Yslas de Blasques" and incredibly he also states that the inhabitants spoke fluent Spanish.

The population of the Island varied over the hundreds of years but in 1840 the population was thought to be approximately 150 people. Sadly after the great famine of 1846-1850 that number had declined drastically.

Like most villages in Ireland after the famine, the population began to grow and by 1916 the population in the Great Blasket Island had reached its peak of 176 men, women and children. Tragically less than 40 years on, the Great Blasket Island had been abandoned by her people. The emigration race had

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