Qualla: Lambay Island

Lambay Island: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Raymond McSherry, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wallabies live on Lambay. Red-necked wallabies, native to eastern Australia, hopping through the heather of a small island five kilometres off the coast of Dublin. Rupert Baring released the first pair in the 1950s as a private experiment; Dublin Zoo donated surplus stock in the 1980s. By 2017 the population was around a hundred. They graze the cliff-top grassland alongside fallow deer, sheep, and cattle, while 50,000 common guillemots nest on the seabird cliffs above them and grey seals haul out at Seal Hole. The Baring family has owned this private island since 1904 - bought for 5,250 pounds by an American-born banker who needed somewhere to escape with the wife of one of his business partners.

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Image: Raymond McSherry | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lambay Island: Lamb Island

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerry Doyle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name is Norse: Lamb-ey, lamb island. Old Norse-speaking settlers along this coast in the 9th and 10th centuries used the place as a spring nursery for their ewes, where lambs could be born in a predator-free environment. The Irish name is Reachrainn, and the nearest coastal v...

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Image: Gerry Doyle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lambay Island: Saints, Vikings, and Cromwell

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Hogweard, CC0. St Columba is said to have founded a monastic settlement here around 530 AD - then passed it to his pupil Colman McRoi, whose feast day is still 16 June. The monastery survived two centuries until the Vikings raided it in 795, in what was the first recorded Norse attack on Irelan...

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Image: User:Hogweard | CC0

Lambay Island: The Banker and the Tobacco Heiress

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mbaring, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1904 the Honourable Cecil Baring - of the Baring banking dynasty, later 3rd Baron Revelstoke - bought Lambay for 5,250 pounds. He had been working in the United States when he fell in love with Maude Louise Lorillard, the wife of one of his fellow directors. She was the daught...

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Image: Mbaring | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lambay Island: Tayleur's Wreck

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Medcalf, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 21 January 1854, just two days into her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Australia, the iron-hulled RMS Tayleur struck the southeast rocks of Lambay in a gale and broke up. Chartered by the White Star Line and one of the largest merchant ships of her day, the Tayleur carried 66...

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Image: David Medcalf | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lambay Island: An Island Today

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dr Charles Nelson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Alex Baring - Cecil's great-grandson - and his wife Brooke and their children are the only permanent residents in 2020. The island holds 26 National Monuments, two Special Area of Conservation designations, and one of Ireland's largest seabird colonies: 50,000 common guillemots, ...

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Image: Dr Charles Nelson | CC BY-SA 2.0