Inishkea Islands

The Inishkea Islands (Irish: Inis Cé)[1][2] are situated off the coast of the Belmullet peninsula in County Mayo in Ireland.

Early Christian sites dating from the sixth to the tenth centuries are found on most of the Erris islands including Duvillaun and Inishglora.

Like most places in the west of Ireland, the pattern of lazy beds can be seen on the island wherever there was enough soil to sow potatoes, even on the outer reaches near the cliff edge.

Wrecking was common along the west coast so the authorities had to deploy Royal Naval ships to stamp it out and there were islanders shot and killed as they attacked the passing vessels.

However, when coastguards were posted to coastal sites in the latter part of the 19th century, they were despised and hated and they were a disaster, economically, for these islands because they stamped out wrecking and smuggling."[who?]

In the South Island, in the house of a man named Monigan, a stone idol, called in the Irish 'Neevougi' has been from time immemorial religiously preserved and worshipped.

This god in appearance resembles a thick roll of home-spun flannel, which arises from the custom of dedicating a dress of that material to it, whenever its aid is sought; this is sewed on by an old woman, its priestess, whose peculiar care it is.

"[9]In 1940 English author T. H. White visited the islands and learned the tale of what called the "Neevougi" (probably Naomhóg, roughly translating to "little saint").

According to White, the inhabitants of the islands credited the stone with calming weather, speeding the growth of potatoes, and quelling fire, but that it had allegedly been cast into the sea in the 1890s by one Fr.

[9] White's discoveries - which include encounters with pirates, the theft of the stone from North to South Inishkea by islanders jealous of its potato-growing properties, a thrice (or once) annual ceremony where the stone was re-"clothed" in new cloth, and the niche in the wall of a south Inishkea hut where the Naomhóg had formerly resided - are recorded in his book The Godstone and the Blackymor, which was based upon his contemporary journal.

This suggests that Inishkea was an important centre in the Early Christian period, but that the islanders somehow reverted to pagan beliefs at some point.

Some of the currachs (traditional boats) managed to reach home but several failed to get back and one was reputed to have been carried across to the mainland and tossed ashore with its crew unharmed.

It was traded in the 17th century from the coast of Connacht through Galway to Spain and onto the spice markets of Cairo and Baghdad where he said it was worth a 'small fortune'.

In 1946, French archaeologist Francoise Henry excavated evidence of a 7th-century dye workshop on Inishkea North, where the monks in an early Christian Monastery were producing it from the shells of the dog whelk.

Fine white sand is found everywhere, often blown into drifts by the strong winds especially along the beach beside the harbour where it fills the houses of the abandoned village.