Qualla: Copeland Islands

Copeland Islands: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0. When Hans Sloane visited the Copeland Islands in the late seventeenth century, he could barely walk for the seabirds. He wrote later of sea wrens whose eggs lay so thick on the ground that he and his companions had trouble passing along without treading on them, the birds screaming overhead the whole time. Sloane went on to found the British Museum. The islands went on being themselves: three small, low-lying rocks in the Irish Sea, north of Donaghadee, in the place where the Ards Peninsula slips beneath the waves. They are still loud with seabirds. They are still where most of the action happens without any humans involved.

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Image: Ross | CC BY-SA 2.0

Copeland Islands: Three Islands, Three Stories

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. There are three of them, and each has its own name to give and take. Copeland Island, also called Big Island or Great Copeland Island, is the largest. Lighthouse Island, also known as Old Island, used to have a lighthouse but no longer does. Mew Island, the easternmost, does have...

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Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Copeland Islands: Shearwaters in the Burrows

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wilson Adams, CC BY-SA 2.0. On dusk evenings between April and September, the Manx shearwater colony on Copeland Islands comes alive. More than four thousand breeding pairs nest here, holding over 1.7 percent of the world's population of this small, ocean-roaming seabird. The shearwaters spend their days fa...

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Image: Wilson Adams | CC BY-SA 2.0

Copeland Islands: Lights and Smugglers

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1671, James Ross obtained a fee farm grant of the islands, and in 1770 they passed to David Kerr, bought from the 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil. The waters around the Copelands were dangerous to shipping, and around 1715 a coal-burning beacon was lit on Lighthouse Island. It consume...

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Image: Ross | CC BY-SA 2.0

Copeland Islands: Princess Victoria

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ryan kirk, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 31 January 1953, a North Atlantic storm of historic violence swept across the Irish Sea. The British Transport Commission car ferry MV Princess Victoria, sailing from Stranraer to Larne, was overwhelmed by enormous waves. Her stern doors gave way and she foundered off the Cope...

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Image: Ryan kirk | CC BY-SA 3.0