Kerry: seals and seabirds in Ireland's first marine park
Our essential guide to the new wildlife preserve on the rugged coastline of Kerry, in southwest Ireland.
Image credit: Mike Unwin
Our essential guide to the new wildlife preserve on the rugged coastline of Kerry, in southwest Ireland.
There’s an eerie, melancholy sound: a high-pitched wailing that carries on the breeze as we rock in the swell. Some have described it as the lament of lost souls, which feels fitting, given that we’re opposite an abandoned island. But a closer look reveals dozens of grey seals hauled out on the beach. The voices are pups trying to locate their mums.
I’m off the coast of Kerry, southwest Ireland, on a boat tour. The island in question is Great Blasket, the largest of the Blasket Islands, finally vacated in 1954 when life just became too tough and the inhabitants upped sticks for America. Today, the stone cottages stand empty.
But things are looking up for the Blaskets. They are part of the new Kerry Seas National Park (Páirc Náisiúnta na Mara, Ciarraí), Ireland’s first marine park, launched last year.
This huge reserve protects 70,000 acres of precious marine habitats off Ireland’s gorgeous Kerry coast, with numerous sites of rich cultural heritage, plus an outstanding marine biodiversity, including internationally important seabird populations and rare sea mammals.
It’s the wildlife I’ve come for. Which is why we’re now charting a course south across the bay from the Dingle Peninsula towards the cliffs of Coonanna.
My hope is to spy one of the humpback whales that are regular visitors to these waters, but Brendan Curtin from AquaTerra Boat Tours, who is at the wheel, feels our chances today are slim.
"It’s been quiet for humpbacks," he says. "But we’ve had a record year for basking sharks – 40 in one trip."
Late afternoon sunlight illuminates the layered basalt cliffs ahead. "It’s worth coming here just for the geology," says Brendan, as I scan the flat-calm sea. Then suddenly, "Gannets!"
Ahead of us, the surface detonates like depth charges as the birds plunge-dive in turn. We speed up: diving gannets mean schooling fish, and fish could mean bigger stuff.
Other birds appear as we race towards the action: Manx shearwaters angling low over the waves, kittiwakes dipping and wheeling. Soon we’re in the thick of a seabird feeding frenzy. And not only birds.
Bigger splashes announce a pod of common dolphins, dorsal fins slicing the surface. There’s so much going on, I hardly know where to look. "Straight ahead!" shouts Brendan.
I turn to catch the long, gleaming back of a minke whale surfacing like a submarine across our bows.
We see the whale twice more – brief glimpses. Then everything settles down. The gannets disperse towards the horizon, the dolphins vanish. A single, disconsolate great black-backed gull sits on the water, too late to the party.
The following morning finds me back on terra firma, winding round the Dingle Peninsula. The mist spilling over the mountains brings a suitable sense of ghostliness to the Iron Age ruins along the roadside.
At the Blasket Centre, an impressive museum designed by state architect Ciaran O’Connor, I learn the extraordinary stories of the community that once inhabited these lonely islands.
"These people barely survived yet they found it within themselves to create the space to write," says manager Lorcán Ó Cinnéide, explaining the islands’ rich literary tradition.
Outside, a viewing platform offers a stirring island panorama. Cloud shadows scud across the slate-and-silver sea as I comb the horizon for whale spouts.
Then it’s back to Dingle, where later that evening an impromptu session at Dick Mack’s Pub, with two fiddles, a cello and many voices, confirms that the craic is alive and well in this corner of Kerry.
Two mornings later I’m on the sea again, departing Portmagee Harbour – two hours south of Dingle – for another group of islands. It’s a "pet day", I’m told (an Irish expression for fine), and my ride, the Celtic Victor, ploughs onward beneath a cloudless blue sky towards two craggy rock stacks looming on the horizon.
These are the fabled Skelligs: the jewel in the crown of the new marine park.
"Last week, we had three humpbacks just west of here," says the skipper’s mate Ger O’Sullivan. "They breached just once; we never saw them again."
No whales appear today but there are gannets aplenty – a blizzard of them, swirling around the precipitous slopes of Little Skellig. The colony on this uninhabited island is the world’s third largest, with over 40,000 birds, and the air is thick with wings.
Soon we’re tying up at the tiny jetty on Skellig Michael, the larger of the two islands. For centuries this remote outpost was a retreat for monks, who ate the seabirds and grew veg in their rich guano.
Today, its dramatic crags are identifiable to any Star Wars fan as Luke Skywalker’s sanctuary on the planet Ahch-To.
Once ashore, we climb a zigzag of stone steps, above dizzying cliffs, until eventually we reach the summit.
"A month ago, these slopes were covered in puffins," says our guide Catherine Merrigan, explaining that 8,000 of everybody’s favourite seabird breed here in summer. Around us are the beehive huts and other stone ruins left by the monks.
Catherine relates the island’s history: how the first monks arrived by coracle in the 6th century and hid from brutal Viking raids; how Augustinian friars subsequently built a bricks-and-mortar monastery; and how, after this building was abandoned, people still came from the mainland to do penance. "I’ve been here 20 years!" quips Catherine.
Meanwhile fulmars zoom past, ravens grumble overhead and razorbills glint on the water far below.
The puffins may be gone but this is still seabird central. Catherine tells me that Manx shearwaters nest inside the beehive huts – though, being nocturnal, the adults won’t return until nightfall. We peek briefly inside one. I can just make out a fluffy chick nestled into a cavity, waiting for dinner.
Back outside, in dazzling sunlight, I take a moment with the view. Catherine explains that this spot was a prayer station for the monks; they stood with arms open and prayed towards the edge of the known world. It’s a powerful image. What’s more, surely they would have seen humpbacks. I raise my binoculars for one final scan.
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