Qualla: Owey Island

Owey Island: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is no mains electricity on Owey. There never was. There is no public water supply either - what fell from the sky was what you drank, and what came from the well at the back of the cottage was what you washed in. The school closed in 1971 and the post office not long after. By the mid-1970s, the last full-time residents had taken the boat across to Kincasslagh and not come back. The cottages they left behind still stand on the island's sheltered southern shore, low and whitewashed, looking out across the narrow sound at the Donegal mainland.

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Owey Island: The Shape of It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Owey sits a kilometre off the Donegal coast, near the fishing village of Kincasslagh. The island rises to its high point at Moylemore - 102 metres, modest by mountain standards but commanding on a patch of land this size. The north end is granite and weather: sea cliffs scoured b...

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Owey Island: A Whiskey Coast

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Turf cut from the island's bogs heated the cottages. It also heated something else. Some of Owey's islanders used their peat fires under copper stills, producing single malt and other liquors out of barley and spring water, well beyond the reach of any tax collector. This was Don...

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Owey Island: The Last Boat

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The story of Owey in the second half of the 20th century is the story of every small Irish island - and many of the largest. The school's teacher handled every age in one room, but secondary education meant the mainland, and the mainland meant boarding, and boarding meant the lon...

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Owey Island: The Rock Climbers Found It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Granite is the gift Owey kept for visitors. The island's north and west cliffs offer some of the cleanest sea-stack and coastal climbing in Ireland - long routes on solid stone, with the Atlantic boiling at your heels. A climbing guidebook produced by Unique Ascent maps the whole...

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Owey Island: The Weather That Made It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Stand on Moylemore on a clear day and you can see how the geography works. Aranmore lies south, larger and still inhabited. The mainland stretches east, Mount Errigal's quartz cone visible inland. The Atlantic opens west, nothing between you and Newfoundland. The wind here has sh...

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