Qualla: Inishbofin Island

Inishbofin Island: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Drow69, CC BY-SA 3.0. The ferry from Cleggan takes thirty minutes. Lapwing House is south of the empty runway, so it is nice and quiet. There is no mobile signal from any carrier - your accommodation will have Wi-Fi because their business depends on it. The legend is that Inishbofin was not a fixed island at all but wandered the western seas at will, refusing to settle, until a stranger lit a fire on it and the island finally stayed put. The legend itself wanders. The island has only stayed put in the sense that it has remained, against several centuries of trying, very hard to settle.

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Image: Drow69 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Inishbofin Island: Island of the White Cow

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Inis Bó Finne - Island of the White Cow - rises five and a half kilometers long by three wide out of the Atlantic. The land is low, treeless, sprayed by salt wind. Its 184 inhabitants (as of the 2022 census) live mostly around the southern harbor. For most of recorded history the...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Inishbofin Island: St Colmán's Argument

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Drow69, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 664 a synod was convened at Whitby in Northumbria to settle a long dispute over when Easter should fall. Two methods of calculation were in use across western Christendom. The Iona tradition, brought to Lindisfarne by Aidan and continued by Colmán, calculated one way; the Roma...

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Image: Drow69 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Inishbofin Island: Grace O'Malley's Mooring

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On a hill above the harbor, with no visible remains, once stood a castle held by Gráinne Ní Mháille - Grace O'Malley, the Pirate Queen of Connacht. She ruled Mayo by sea during a period of Tudor encroachment in the late 16th century. Her trade and her power were both seaborne; he...

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Image: Public domain

Inishbofin Island: The Runway That Waits

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:O'Dea, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five hundred meters north of the pier sits one of the strangest infrastructure projects in modern Ireland: a fully-built airport that has never opened. Construction began in 2009. The runway was paved. The buildings went up. The maintenance contracts began. Even private aircraft ...

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Image: User:O'Dea | CC BY-SA 4.0