Great Blasket Island lies off the west coast of Ireland on the north side of the entrance to Dingle Bay about a mile off the extremity of the Dingle Peninsula. The uninhabited island is situated within a rocky group of islets that are Ireland’s, and continental Europe’s, most westerly. Great Blasket Island provides an anchorage and a sandy beach or slipway upon which to land on the island.

The island provides a tolerable anchorage that is only usable in good conditions. Navigation is straightforward in daylight, at any stage of the tide when a favourable tide is available for the direction of approach.

Tides can be confused and unpredictable at times so a power-driven craft is best equipped for this location.

Keyfacts for Great Blasket Island

Position and approaches

Haven position

52° 6.405' N, 010° 30.711' W

200 metres off the middle of the beach near the old island settlement.

What are the initial fixes?

The following waypoints will set up a final approach:

(i) An Tra Ban (beach anchorage approach) Initial Fix

52° 6.500' N, 010° 29.900' W



(ii) Middle Blasket Sound Initial Fix

52° 7.500' N, 010° 29.500' W

Safe middle point fix to Blasket Sound passage. This is upon the alignment 015° (or 195° heading south) upon the site of the old tower on Sybil Point and Clogher Rock, off Clogher Head. It is abeam of the north ends of the group of rocky islets.

(iii) South Blasket Sound Initial Fix

52° 6.000' N, 010° 30.000' W

Safe South point fix to Blasket Sound passage. This is upon the alignment 015° (or 195° heading south) upon the site of the old tower on Sybil Point and Clogher Rock, off Clogher Head.

What are the key points of the approach?

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What's the story here?

The Blasket Islands are a group of seven steep and rocky islands situated on the north side of the entrance to Dingle Bay. At 3¼ miles long, east to west, ⅔ of a mile wide, at its widest part, and rising to 289 metres at its highest point, at An Cró Mór, Great Blasket Island is the largest, highest and the principal island of the group. Separated from the mainland by Blasket Sound it was once home to a small fishing community of Irish speakers. 20th-Century living standards increasingly made island life unsustainable and it was finally abandoned in 1954 and has remained uninhabited since save for some summer holiday homes. A tearoom is opened on the island during the summer months to cater for tourists who cross from the nearby Dunquin pier on the mainland.




The ruin of the old settlement stands at the northeast end of the island on the shore facing the mainland. Below it is An Trá Ban beach at the head of a sandy bay which offers fair-to-good holding, settled conditions shelter and landings upon its beach.



There is also a small rocky cove and boat slip close southwest of An Trá Ban and under the old settlement that facilitates landings off the tourist boats. It can also be used for landings when there is any surf on the beach.

How to get in?

Use Ireland’s coastal overview for Mizen Head to Loop Head for seaward approaches. Great Blasket Island lies approximately 1 mile from Dunmore Head, on the mainland, from which it extends 3¼ miles to the southwest. Springing precipitously from a narrow base to the height of 289 metres with stunning steep cliffs along its northwest side, Great Blasket is utterly unmistakable. It can be further identified by the ruined Eask Tower on the summit of a 229 metres high ridge 1½ miles northeastward of the summit of An Cró Mór.




The anchorage is off the northeast side of the island that overlooks Blasket Sound. Blasket Sound is not without its dangerous mid-channel rocks, fast tidal streams, overfalls, and magnetic anomalies but it is easy to navigate in moderate weather with a single line of transit leading through it. This is detailed in Navigating Blasket Sound which is best used for an approach.




All three initial fixes are set on the well-charted single alignment of 015° T (or 195° T southbound) of the site of the old tower on Sybil Point and Clogher Rock, off Clogher Head. This alignment leads through Blasket Sound and the An Tra Ban initial fix provides a good point to break off for the anchorage off the beach. Acquiring the marks is important as the area is subject to local magnetic anomalies.




Vessel approaching from the south should keep centre track on the alignment at all times as the southern end is its narrowest part, between Dunmore Head and Garraun Point (the east point of Great Blasket Island), is reduced to ¾ of a mile wide. The navigational width is further reduced to approximately 1,000 metres by a narrow strip of rock extending out from Dunmore Head with a conical 44 metres high rock island called The Lure at the end.




Beyond The Lure are several dangerous covered and drying rocks. The drying rock, called Scollage Rock, lies close west of The Lure is covered at high water and dries to 3.7 metres. The Stromboli Rocks lie in the channel about six hundred metres west-southwest of Scollage Rock and consist of several small pinnacles with a least depth of 1.8 metres over them. These all break heavily in bad weather.




Once inside the sound, the passage becomes partially sheltered by a large number of rocks and islets to the west making for a much more comfortable sail. Continue to the An Tra Ban (beach anchorage approach) initial fix and then turn westward for the beach passing to the south of the low lying Beginish Island.




Vessel approaching from the north should likewise stay on transit, astern 195° T (015° T northbound) of the site of the old tower on Sybil Point and Clogher Rock.




The alinement passes at least 400 metres to the east of the rocky islet of Beginish, with Youngs Island close north, which forms the eastern boundary of this group and the western side of Blasket Sound.




The beach is fairly steep so a vessel may get fairly close in at 3 metres and out of the run of the tide. Holding is fair to good in sand. It is advisable to be always a bit cautious as Blasket Sound can be subject to a surge and the tide sweeps through it with a pronounced south-going back-eddy on the north-going tide. As such it is preferable to increase the amount of chain that would normally be let out here.




Land by tender on An Trá Ban beach in settled conditions. The slip can be found in the rocks under the settlement close southwest of An Trá Ban.




Locals tend to recommend landing on the slip rather than on the beach if there is any surf up as the beach can be subject to 'a pull' or 'a lop'. However, the island ferries have their moorings just off this slip and use it for landings. So if the slip is used please move the tender so the landing area is kept clear for their activities.

Why visit here?

The origin of the name 'Blaskets', in Irish 'Na Blascaodaí' is a mystery. They were first recorded on Italian maps of the 14th and 15th Centuries with the names 'brasch', 'brascher' and 'blaset'. The variant form of these names, the 'Blasket Isles', was recorded for the first time in 1589.




The name 'Blasket', or 'Na Blascaodaí', does have strong Nordic resonances. It is thought to have most likely originated from the Norse word 'brasker' which means 'a sharp reef' or 'a dangerous place'. Although very beautiful during fine summer weather, this is a more than appropriate descriptor for the group in bad weather when it is a most forbidding place. This is how it was experienced by four escaping ships of the Spanish Armada in the storms of September 1588.




The ships, one of which was the largest ships of the fleet, were driven through the narrow unmarked passage close north of Great Blasket Island. The first ship the 'Recalde' executed an utterly remarkable feat of seamanship and got into the sheltered anchorage under Great Blasket Island, followed by a second ship the 'Bautista'. Both of these vessels eventually got back to Spain. Two other compatriot vessels, the 'Ragusa' and the 'Rosa', tried to join them but were wrecked. The 'Rosa' drifted and then simply sank after striking what is believed to be the Stromboli Rock. The 'Ragusa' was in distress and sank after it struck what is believed to have been the Dunbinna Reef.




This would have been a remarkable spectacle for the islanders living in one of the most remote locations of Europe as all of the Blaskets were inhabited at one time or another. There is evidence that Great Blasket, 'An Blascaod Mór', was inhabited during the Iron Age and early Christian times although at no time since the Famine had it more than 200 inhabitants.




Life here was primitive for them, with little agriculture possible on the island. Each family had a cow, a few sheep, a plot of potatoes and they cut peat from the high ridge for fuel. Yet no one went hungry as they harvested fish from the sea. It was because the islanders subsisted largely off the sea, rather than on potatoes, that they survived the Famine. Nevertheless, anything outside of what the island and sea provided, such as church services, necessitated the islanders crossing Blasket Sound to Dunquin on the mainland.




This extreme geography and isolation left it as the most traditional of Irish communities of the early 20th-Century and an outpost for a pure form of the Irish language. The value of this resource was recognised by academics during the Gaelic renaissance after independence who set about recording it in both written and audio form. This created a rich depository of knowledge of their language, their old folk tales of the land, and their traditions that surrounded a way of life that was been lost forever. As such the small settlement became an icon of traditional Irish culture and a cornerstone of Irish heritage, especially in their role in preserving the Irish language. But this was not all down to the academic researchers as the island itself produced a remarkable number of gifted writers who vividly brought their harsh existence to life.




In the 20th-Century some 60 books, mostly in Irish, have been written in the immediate area and the inhabitants of the island were reputed to have the purest and most poetic form of Gaelic in all of Ireland. Two of the best known are the best-seller, translated as '20 Years A Growing' by Maurice O' Sullivan, and 'The Island Man' by Tomás Ó Criomhtháin which is thought of as being a masterpiece. A lesser book, that for a time was the most famous, was 'An Old Woman's Reflections' and 'Peig, An Autobiography' by Peig Sayers that was her oral memoir, dictated to one of her sons in her old age. In Irish it was titled 'My Own Story' and was studied by most of the population of Ireland at one time in school.




All the time life, however, remained harsh in the historical village, huddled against the hillside for shelter on the east side of the island above the beach anchorage. All supplies had to be carried by boat across the Sound and in the days when the only means of transport was a canvas-covered 'curragh' or 'naomhóg'. The Islanders were sometimes marooned for weeks at a time, especially in the stormy winter months, when sea mists would make the island invisible from the land.

Numbers dwindled to about 100 people over the years as emigration took its toll, but the writing was on the wall when the turf supply, the only source of fuel on the island, became scarce. The government concluded that it was no longer viable to offer the state’s protection to such a remote storm-lashed outpost nor for the islanders to live in such harsh and isolated conditions. The decision was made to evacuate and the last handful of Great Blasket's residents came to the mainland in 1953. These were re-settled on the mainland, mostly in the parish of Dunquin where the Blasket Islanders came ashore to trade or buy provisions, which is why it has a certain historical resonance with local people. Since then, Great Blasket has been uninhabited although a few people make their home out here for part of the year.

The island is today a National Historic Park. It has some homes that receive summer visitors, and there is also a house on the smaller Inishvickillane Island. Apart from these few maintained houses, all the other structures have fallen into ruins that are slowly worn down by each passing year’s winter storms. Although there are plans to repopulate Great Blasket Island it is most likely that one day there may be nothing left but piles of stones and the traces of pathways.




Today Dunquin hosts The Blasket Centre, 'Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir' a wonderful interpretative and heritage centre where it is possible to learn about its people and history. From the dramatically sited Dunquin Pier very fit and nimble-footed day-trippers enjoy excursions to Great Blasket. But this never amounts to much as the small island slip limits visitors to no more than about 400 per day and, in reality, the island averages less than about 200 a day so it is never busy.




The island itself has five simple self-catering cottages available to rent and a small coffee shop that serves refreshments during the season. Apart from that, there is nothing but the abandoned settlements, seabirds, a scattering of sheep that silently graze the steep hillsides and the many trails that lead around the heather-and moss-covered island. All of which are shrouded in a rare quality of oceanic light with spectacular views out over the surrounding islands of the archipelago, the Sound and the mainland to the east. Most notably nearby Inishtooskert is also known as 'An Fear Marbh' (the dead man) or the sleeping giant due to its appearance when seen from the east.




Great Blasket is a place to escape the world, there are no phones, no lights, no cars and not a single luxury. It is a place to experience intense peace in beautiful, unspoiled surroundings. Ideally, reading Maurice O’Sullivan’s 'Twenty Years a-Growing' before landing and a stroll through the simple domestic ruins will be much more touching. If possible also try to pack a picnic to enjoy on the gorgeous white sand Trá Bán. Just these could make Great Blasket one of the most memorable places in Ireland to visit.




From a boating point of view, the Blasket Islands represent the westernmost points of Ireland and Continental Europe and have that attraction. Blasket Sound is easy to navigate in moderate weather. Because it offers considerable distance saving for vessels passing along the coast it is the preferred path taken by leisure craft.




With the anchorage being less than a half-mile from the transit through the sound it is an experience, in an auspicious weather window, not to be missed. Especially when anchorages off the other Blaskets are more than complicated and the domain of the very adventurous.

What facilities are available?

The island is uninhabited apart for a few summer visitors. Apart from a good well at the top of the village, and the ferry service to the island which operates from the nearby Dunquin pier during the summer months, there is nothing here but a tea room a few summer cottages and the ruins of the original inhabitants.

Any security concerns?

No security issues known to have occurred off Great Blasket Island.

With thanks to:

Burke Corbett, Gusserane, New Ross, Co. Wexford.