Inaccessible Mystery

Lambay Island may be barely 5km off Rush in north Co. Dublin, but it has long had an air of inaccessible mystery. When WB Yeats visited the island in the 1880s, he compared the experience of landing on a remote South Seas island for the first time.

Lambay Island is the largest island off the east coast of Ireland and is about 2.5 square kilometres (240 hectares or 593.1 acres) in size. Its highest point rises to 127 metres (416.7 feet). There are steep cliffs on the northern, eastern, and southern sides of the island, with a more low-lying western shore. The geology is dominated by igneous rocks, with shales and limestones and a small number of wells and streams.

There is a private harbour on the western shore, and there are a small number of buildings nearby including a Bothy, coastguard cottages and a real tennis court.