Mutton Island

Ireland | Europe: Atlantic

Size approx. 185 acres
Location near Seafield Harbour, County Clare, West Coast of Ireland
Country/State Ireland
Region Europe: Atlantic

Description:
The island itself comprises 185 acres of grassland with a freshwater lake and several springwater wells. It slopes gently from sea level on the east to a height of 110 feet over two kilometers to the west where the watchtower is situated. The east of the island contains the ruins of two cottages, a disused graveyard and the site of a cross and oratory, as well as several walled fields.

History:
According to tradition Mutton Island gets its name from the sheep that landed there off a wrecked Spanish Armada Ship called the Zuniga, which floundered on its coast in 1588. Some of the people from the ship are buried in the disused graveyard and a brass cannon from the ship was still on the island up to thirty years ago. Two promontory forts on the island attest to it's prehistoric inhabitation when it was at the outer edge of the known world.
By 548 AD the first recorded building was erected there by St. Senan who built a church and founded a monastic settlement there while on his way from the Aran Islands to the Shannon Estuary.

Map Earth

According to the Annals of the Four Masters it was hit by a massive storm in 801 AD when it was called the Island of Fitha. In 1215 it was granted to the Archbishop of Cashel by the Norman government. In the early 1700's it was used for wine and tobacco smuggling as names like Poulaneena (of the wine) and Port Tobacco Cove evidence. During that time the Island was owned by Sir Edward O'Brien of Drumoland who was a well-known and eager customer of wine smugglers. In the late 1700's a telegraph watchtower and keep were built there by the coastguard to keep vigil for a French invasion that never happened! Since then Mutton Island has had a quiet pastoral history as a self-sufficient continually inhabited island, supporting up to twelve families, the last of whom left in 1948.

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Mutton Island

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