Qualla: Whiddy Island

Whiddy Island: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warren Buckley, CC BY-SA 2.0. Thirty-one people live on Whiddy Island today. A century and a half ago there were 450, working pilchard fisheries and small farms on the gently rolling glacial till that makes the island unexpectedly fertile for its latitude. The local goats - feral, casual - sometimes wander along the road near the oil terminal that dominates the south shore. The same island that hosted American seaplanes hunting U-boats in 1918 became, fifty years later, the place where the largest oil tankers in the world made landfall in Europe. And then on a January night in 1979, that history changed permanently.

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Image: Warren Buckley | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiddy Island: A White Island for Norse Sailors

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pam Brophy, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name's origin is uncertain. One persistent theory derives it from the Old Norse Hvit-oy - white island - a reminder that Bantry Bay was within reach of the Norse longships that ranged the Irish coast in the ninth and tenth centuries. In the early seventeenth century, the plac...

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Image: Pam Brophy | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiddy Island: Curtiss Seaplanes and a Single Death

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Towel401, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the last months of the First World War, the US Navy established a seaplane base on the eastern end of Whiddy. The first two Curtiss Model H aircraft arrived on 25 September 1918. The base eventually flew five planes - long, twin-engined boats with four-man crews and Lewis mach...

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Image: Towel401 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Whiddy Island: Pilchards, Then Supertankers

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Around 1900, the pilchard - what English speakers more often call the European sardine - was the islanders' main income. The ruins of Pilchard Palaces, the curing sheds where the fish were salted and pressed, stand near the bank. Fishing declined; the island emptied; population f...

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiddy Island: The Night of the Betelgeuse

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mucklagh, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 8 January 1979, the French tanker Betelgeuse was unloading her cargo at the offshore jetty when she broke apart and exploded. Fifty people died - 42 French sailors, seven Irish terminal workers, and the wife of one of the French officers who had joined her husband for the voya...

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Image: Mucklagh | CC BY-SA 4.0

Whiddy Island: Living There Now

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today's Whiddy Island has 31 residents, one pub - the Bank House, offering food and live music in summer - and a hackney service. Bike hire is available; walking trails form part of the Sheep's Head Way long-distance route. The mild winters mean the island has a local reputation ...

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0