Island Eddy is a small island at the inner, eastern end of Galway Bay

Galway Bay

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city is located on the northeast side of the bay. It is about long and from to in breadth...

.

Orthography

The island is always referred to locally as 'Island Eddy' not 'Eddy Island'. The official Irish Government commission on placenames confirms this usage, giving its Irish and English orthography thus: ‘Oileán Eide / Island Eddy’. It is important not to confuse Island Eddy with Islandeady

Islandeady

Islandeady is a village in County Mayo, Ireland, about halfway between the towns of Castlebar and Westport.The parish of Islandeady meets Castlebar to the east, Westport and Newport to the west, and Aughagower and Killawalla to the south. There is a view of Croagh Patrick to the west and Nephin to...

, a village and parish in Co. Mayo.

Geographical

Island Eddy is situated on the inner reaches of Galway Bay

Galway Bay

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city is located on the northeast side of the bay. It is about long and from to in breadth...

 on the west coast of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The nearest town, as the crow flies, would be Kinvara

Kinvara

Kinvara is a sea port village located in the south of County Galway in the province of Connacht on the west coast of Ireland. Kinvara is also the name of the parish in which the village is situated. Kinvara is occasionally spelled Kinvarra in English; this may be seen on some maps and road signs,...

 which sits at the head of a shallow inlet some 7 km to the South-South-East.

Administrative

• Townland Name: Island Eddy
• Civil Parish: Drumacoo
• Barony: Dunkellin
• County: Galway
• Province: Connacht
• Diocese – historical: Kilmacduagh
• Diocese (R. C.) - modern: Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora
• Poor Law Union
  Poor Law Union
  A Poor Law Union was a unit used for local government in the United Kingdom from the 19th century. The administration of the Poor Law was the responsibility of parishes, which varied wildly in their size, populations, financial resources, rateable values and requirements...
  
  : Galway
• Rural District: 10: Galway
• District Electoral Division
  District Electoral Division
  A district electoral division is a former name given to a low-level territorial division in Ireland. In 1994, both district electoral divisions and wards were renamed as electoral divisions...
  
  : 043: Ballynacourty

Physical character

Island Eddy consists of three low islets, inter-linked and flanked by extensive ithmuses and spits composed of shingle. At the South-West end of the island a number of the latter combine to form a large lagoon-like area, and a second series also define another 'lagoon' at the eastern end. These lagoons are known locally as "Malluirs", and are labelled as the North Mallmhuir and the South Mallmhuir, respectively. The islets are probably partially submerged drumlins. A sand spit, called "the cush" locally, extends south-eastwards from the east end of the island allowing access to it from the mainland by foot at certain spring tides.

According to the OS six inches to the mile (1:10,560) scale map the island is '165 Acres, 3 Roods and 24 Perches' (67.14 hectares (165.91 acre)) in extent. Its maximum dimensions are 2.85 kilometres (1.77 mi) long, east to west, and 1.05 kilometre (0.652441373482297 mi) wide, north to south. Its maximum elevation is 8 metres (26.25 ft).

History of ownership

1574: Bishop of Kilmacduagh

1641: Dr Robert Gorges (sic)

1667: Dr. Robert Georges

1855: Sir Thomas N. Redington

Population

1821	1841	1851	1861	1871	1881	1891	1901	1911	1926	1936	1946	1951	1956	1961	1966	1971	1979	1981
72	125	66	61	59	77	65	54	38	35	37	24	16	11	5	4	2	2	0

Source: www.cso.ie

Historynarratives

1. The earliest documentary reference to the island (so far identified) dates from AD 1225. In his Irish Family History;...an historical and genealogical account of the Gaedhals, Richard Cronnelly refers to a raid on 'Hy-Fiachra' by Murtogh O'Brien and the English of Desmond in that year which 'left not a four-footed beast from Island-Eddy to Athenry, or from Tuam to Ectge.'
2. In 1574 'ILand Edde' is referred to in a list of Galway castles. It was in the possession of one 'Henry Parell'
3. In 1585, during a commission of enquiry by the English authorities into the causes of feuding among the O'Flahertys of Connemara, a number of witnesses attested that the chief O'Flahertie had an 'anuall rent the some of 3s 4d oute of the Islands of Eddy'.
4. The OS Name Books, compiled in the late 1830s as part of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, record the following regarding the island: 'Prop. Thos. Reddington, Esq., M.P., Kilcornan. Agent Mr. O’Flaherty, Inischill. This townland pays £200. Tenants at will. Soil light clay. Produce wheat and oats. There are 24 Tenants appearing very poor. Houses of stone. To the east of the island stands a village called Eddy'.
5. A National School was established on the island in November 1877 by the Redington family of Clarinbridge, the island's landlords. According to the application to the National Schools Board for funding of same, the school comprised a single-roomed thatched building '20 feet (6.1 m) long, 14 feet (4.3 m) broad, 10 feet (3 m) high' with an earthen floor. The 'walls are plastered' but the building was 'not ceiled'. A total of 34 students were on the rolls in May 1879, of which 20 were male and 14 female. The first teacher was Kate Madden, aged 19 years. Approval for the payment of the teacher's salary, and for books etc., was given in August 1879.
6. In 1926-7, the island community was involved in a dispute with local government over the perceived high rate of valuation of the land, resulting in a boycott of rates. Details of this are recorded in The Irish Times and in Dail Questions Two interesting topographical points emerge from these sources - firstly the statement in the Dail Questions that the island's valuation 'exceeds the valuation on the best lands in the county'. The second point (in a report by Galway County Council) was that Eddy 'was not a true island'
7. Walsh (2004, 120-21) states that it was 'abandoned in 1947', but the census returns (see above) contradict this. In fact, two people still lived there until early December, 1980

Archaeologyscraps

1. The most obvious piece of built heritage is the ruined house-cluster, or "village", at the east end of the island. On the 1st edition of the six-inch (1:10,560) scale OS map (1842), this comprised 41 roofed structures (houses and outbuildings) laid out on a rough E-W axis. However, by the time of the 1:2500 scale OS revision (1915–16) considerable changes are evident in the layout of the buildings. The total number of roofed structures is now 36, and the acreage details on the map indicate that they were divided into 7 parcels.
2. The site of the Castle mentioned in 1574 (see above under historical snippets) has been located at the eastern end of the village. All that survives is a large stump of masonry in a boundary wall. When the castle was destroyed is unclear but it was still a landmark in the 1760s when it was included in Murdoch Mackenzie's survey of Galway Bay. It appears to have been reduced to a stump by the time the Ordnance surveyors arrived on the island in the late 1830s; they fail to show it on the OS six inches to the mile (1:10,560) map.
3. There is also a Children's Burial Ground on the southern limits of the village. It contains one inscribed gravestone, erected in memory of 'Eliza Murphy Who died April the 8th AD 1827 aged 17 Months'. This is the subject of a paper in the 2010 issue of the Journal of the Galway Archaeological & Historical Society (JGAHS).
4. An impressive series of boat Nausts have been identified in the North Mallmhuir. A toal of 15 definite and one possible nausts are ranged along 115m of shoreline on the South shore of this long narrow inlet. Associated with them are four jetties, numerous mooring posts and a series of ballast dumps. Known locally as 'cloches', they provided safe moorings for the island's fleet of punts, púcáns and bad mórs. A preliminary survey of these was completed in Spring 2010, details of which have been published in Archaeology Ireland. This is being supplemented by a detailed survey, the results of which will appear in due course.
5. A series of numbered seaweed mearing stones exist on the intertidal zone of the South Malluir. Six have been identified in situ to date (September 2011). Working from West to East they are numbered: 23, 22, 21, 9, 10 and 11. A further three examples, all displaced, have been identified during in 2010 and 2011 by Brendan MacMahon, John Roden/Moya Cannon, and Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington/Nick Scott. These bear the numbers 5, 16 and 20, respectively. All the examples consist of long, roughly-dressed rectangular blocks of limestone. The numbers, most finely cut, are placed towards the end of one of the broad faces.
6. There is also placename evidence ('cathair') suggesting the former presence of an enclosure of some kind in the central portion of the island.

Artsmusic, poetry

1. There is a celtic/folk/acoustic music group called Island Eddy based in Kinvara, Co Galway, who took their name from the island.
2. Moya Cannon's new collection of poetry, Hands, contains two finely wrought poems relating to Island Eddy - 'Nausts' and 'Eliza Murphy'. Both poems are grounded in the physical particularities of two of the island's most striking monuments, the boat Nausts on the shore of the North Mallmhuir and the Children's Burial Ground on the southern fringes of the village (See Archaeology section, above, for details).

Geologyfragments

1. According to the Geological Survey of Ireland, the island's bedrock consists of 'viséan
   Viséan
   The Visean, Viséan or Visian is an age in the ICS geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the second stage of the Mississippian, the lower subsystem of the Carboniferous. The Visean lasted from 345.3 ± 2.1 to 328.3 ± 1.6 Ma...
   
    limestone
   Limestone
   Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
   
    and calcareous
   Calcareous
   Calcareous is an adjective meaning mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate, in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines.-In zoology:...
   
    shale
   Shale
   Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
   
   '
2. Very little bedrock is actually exposed on the ground surface, save at the western tip. The long, low, drumlin-like ridge which forms the heart of the island appears to be composed mainly of glacial drift which was probably laid down during the last ice age. The same is probably true of the two smaller hillocks to the east and west of it. In contrast, the sinuous ithmuses and spits which link them are composed of sea-sorted sand, shingles and cobbles. These are of post-glacial origin and it is clear that they are being continuously moulded by tidal currents.

Faunasnippets

1. Sheep and Horse are grazed on the island fields.
2. Otter has been identified, and at least one holt located.
3. There also appear to be numerous rats, particularly along the south-facing shorelines.
4. A bat survey was conducted in the vicinity of the abandoned village on the 21st June 2010, using a Pettersson D100 Heterodyne Bat Detector. A single Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) was detected foraging around the village but its roost was not located.
5. Hares are present but the exact size of the population is unknown. In the recent past they have been trapped and removed from the island for hare-coursing. This is done under government licence, a condition of which is that a similar number of hares are released back onto the island (weather permitting) after coursing has taken place.
6. A pair of young rabbits were sited in June 2010.

The Discursive Survey of Island Eddy

The information presented above has been compiled by The Discursive Survey of Island Eddy, an interdisciplinary group set up by Dr Roden & Ms Springer of Carrowgarrif in 2008. An introduction to the aspirations and approach of the Survey can be found in the Autumn 2010 issue of Archaeology Ireland

The topics being actively researched as of November 2011 are as follows: Lagoons, Vegetation & Ecology of the Salt Marshes, Social & Family History of the House Cluster, Fauna, Peat Deposits, The Placenames of Island Eddy, the Castle Site, the Children's Burial Ground, the Nausts, Maritime History, Birds, Ownership History, Poetry, Folklore, Moths, Cottage Garden Plants & Herbs, Poetry, the Seaweed Beds, and Emigration.

The results of the research are being published as a series of 'Occasional Papers' and 'Artistic Responses' in diverse periodicals. Five papers and responses have appeared to date, as follows:

Occasional Paper No. 1: ‘The grave of Eliza Murphy on Island Eddy, Co. Galway: rubbing, description, poem, story.’ by P. Gosling, S. Springer, M. Cannon, J. Murphy. Journal of the Galway Archaeological & Historical Society, Vol. 62 (2010), pps. 138-143.

Occasional Paper No. 2: 'Nausts, púcáns and 'mallúirs' ' by P. Gosling, B. MacMahon and C. Roden. Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 24, no. 3 (Autumn 2010), pps. 30-34.

Occasional Paper No. 3: 'The Discursive Survey of Island Eddy' by C. Roden. Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 24, no. 3 (Autumn 2010), p. 34.

Artistic Response No. 4: 'Nausts' by M. Cannon. From Hands, Carcanet Press, 2011, p. 29.

Artistic Response No. 5: 'Eliza Murphy' by M. Cannon. From Hands, Carcanet Press, 2011, p. 30-1.