The people of Rathlin Island, frequently threatened with destruction in the past, are fighting back, largely with the help of renewed tourist interest, writes Bryan Coll.
IF ARRIERO, Mary Anne or Margaret Browne were given a second chance, they would steer well clear of Rathlin Island. After all, the innocent passers-by have been consigned to a stay of eternity on Northern Ireland's only inhabited island. The three are not disgruntled residents but just some of the 40 ships whose wrecks currently decorate the ocean floor surrounding Rathlin.
Today, some of their crests decorate the walls of McCuaigs bar, the island's only watering hole. On the far side of Church Bay is a plaque featuring another famous name and another victim of this Bermuda Triangle of Co Antrim. The inscription on the Richard Branson Activity Centre acknowledges the sum paid by the entrepreneur both as gesture of thanks and to recuperate his hot air balloon after it crashed near Rathlin in 1987.
Salvage laws made the islanders the unexpected proprietors of the wreckage and they were more than happy to trade in the balloon for a £25,000 donation.
Over 20 years later, and from the safer environment of the Rathlin Island ferry, the waters seem just as formidable, especially under the shadow cast by the island's spectacular, 400-foot cliffs.
Choosing a seat on board the MV Canna, the island's only transport link to the mainland, is no easy task. Within minutes of the ferry lowering its metal gangway at Ballycastle pier, the most eager tourists have claimed the prime viewing spots. Experience guides a few unhurried islanders towards the centre of the boat, beyond the reach of the ocean spray.
With the remainder of the deck space taken up by a large fuel lorry, the rest of the passengers, one group from Ballymena, another from Bondi Beach, make do with standing, cameras at the ready.
The cargo of photographers and fuel says much about the nature of Rathlin today. The ferry is a functional service above all else, transporting the essential items of daily life on each of its four daily crossings in summer. Visitors do their best to fit around the delivery vans and bin lorries.
Yet with traditional trades like fishing and farming in decline, it is tourism that is taking the central space in the island's economy. And according to plans from the Northern Ireland Executive, this means more space at sea for the increasing numbers of tourists visiting Rathlin.
The Department of Regional Development has awarded a new contract for the ferry service to a Southern-based operator who is promising a high-speed catamaran, capable of carrying 100 seated passengers. The new boat, expected to be in service next year, will offer nine daily return trips in the summer.
Before then, the workman-like MV Cannawill run in parallel with a smaller passenger vessel which can make the crossing from Ballycastle in 20 minutes, just under half the current journey time. "The island has 50,000 visitors per year," says Gustie McCurdy of the Boathouse Visitor Centre. "But we could have twice as many with the new ferry."
On arrival, the island's picturesque harbour provides more evidence of Rathlin's economic change of tack. In the island's fishing heyday, as many as 20 local boats were based in Church Bay. Today there is a solitary vessel, owned by the McFauls, the last fishing family on the island. Most of their catch of pollock, crab and lobster is served up to guests at the Manor House, the 12-bedroom guest house run by Damien McFaul and his partner, Ksenia Zywczuk.
Across the bay, the small Coastguard Boathouse has also taken on a new role. Nowadays it is visitors who navigate around the two-storey museum and tourist information centre contained in the refurbished building. Rathlin-born Gustie McCurdy, a keen local historian, fields the visitors' questions while selling island merchandise and posing for photographs.
"Tourism is the future for this place," says McCurdy, who spent most of his adult life working in England before returning to the island. "Some people say a high volume of tourists will destroy Rathlin but I've never heard of much trouble from visitors."
For an island only eight miles long, Rathlin has surprisingly little trouble filling its tourist brochures, thanks to its natural assets and a touch of creative thinking. Minibuses await the arrival of the ferry to transport visitors to the Rathlin Seabird Sanctuary on the western tip of the island. In the summer months, the high cliffs and stacks are home to thousands of puffins, guillemots and razorbills.
Visitors descend 87 steps to a viewing platform located half-way down the cliff-face at the base of the island's West Lighthouse. Despite dramatic declines in the island's avian population in recent years (the number of puffins, the Seabird Centre's star species, has dropped by over 50 per cent since 1999), bird-watching on Rathlin continues to attract twitchers from around the world. Chinese and South African tourists have already visited the centre during this year's summer season.
The latest addition to Rathlin's burgeoning tourist industry is Bruce's Cave - the supposed hiding place of Scottish King Robert the Bruce. The story of his exile on Rathlin in 1306 and his determined return to Scotland and subsequent victory over English forces at the Battle of Bannockburn has seen Rathlin emerge as a key historical site for Ulster-Scots enthusiasts.
Authenticity has been tricky to prove and there are competing caves in Scotland also claiming to have sheltered Bruce prior to his victory on the battlefield. Nevertheless, a blue plaque on the side of the Boathouse Visitor Centre proudly proclaims Rathlin as the true site of Bruce's brief sojourn.
"I'm fully booked every weekend until August," beams Margaret McQuilkin, proprietor of Coolnagrock bed and breakfast. "We're getting far more visitors now than ever before".
McQuilkin returned to live on Rathlin only last year after spending 32 years working as a nurse in Belfast. As well as being good for business, she hopes Rathlin's tourism drive will encourage local young people to stay and work on the island; a choice her own generation was never offered.
"In my group at school, very few stayed on the island", she says. "Once they left, they just didn't come back."
Ten years ago, Rathlin's population was just over 70 - the lowest figure since the 1650s. Demographic studies in the 1970s even predicted the population would disappear entirely by the end of the 20th century. In recent years, the number of full-time residents has stabilised at around 80.
The main reason for the upward trend isn't returning locals such as Margaret McQuilkin or young beneficiaries of the tourism industry but a new population of urban dwellers who have purchased second homes on the island. It's a phenomenon that worries Rathlin's more senior residents. Bungalow blight is a frequent topic of conversation in Gustie McCurdy's Boathouse Visitor Centre, where visitors and locals swap advice on the best ways of scuppering planning applications.
"These new houses do nothing good for Rathlin", says McCurdy, who has lodged an objection to a proposed development of townhouses in Church Bay near a former monastic settlement. "The developers give them names like Fishermen's Cottages and suggest they'll be in a traditional style," he says. "But when the houses are eventually built, they are totally inappropriate for the island."
It's not simply the faux cottage aesthetics that have upset some of the locals. One of the new homes on Church Bay, the most populated part of the island, was sold for over £250,000 - a price that Margaret McQuilkin believes is beyond the reach of most native islanders.
"There are very few jobs on Rathlin that would pay you enough money to build a house here now", she says. "That makes it hard for young people to get a foothold on the island."
The Rathlin Community and Development Association, an informal council of islanders, has put forward a proposal to the Northern Ireland Planning Service to promote the building of homes for full-time residents and discourage the construction of holiday houses.
The proposal, if accepted, would see planning permission granted only to applicants who could establish family connections to sites on the island that contained the physical remnants of previous dwellings. "You need people who come to the island to be part of the community," says Margaret McQuilkin, nodding towards the harbour. "I think there are enough new houses down there."
The quandary of sustainable development may be Rathlin's greatest challenge in a generation, but the island has a proud tradition of overcoming obstacles and pulling itself back from the brink. A history of brutal massacres (the bloodiest being the Campbell invasion of 1642 which saw the entire population killed), famine and economic migration have all threatened to destroy the island's community at various points in its long history.
Today, Rathlin's resourcefulness is most evident in the islanders' knack for securing grants from a wide range of piggy banks. The UK National Lottery, the International Fund for Ireland, the European Regional Development Fund and the North's own Department for Regional Development have all contributed funds to the island in recent years. The money has financed the refurbishment of the island's St Thomas Church of Ireland and the Manor House amongst other projects.
One of the most sympathetic ears for islanders' concerns has been provided by First Minister Ian Paisley. In his role as MLA and Westminster MP for North Antrim, Paisley has been a strong advocate for the development of the majority-Catholic island.
"Anything we were looking for, he fought for it," says Loughie McQuilkin. "He got us the harbour and fought for electric power to be brought in. We wanted to get the roads repaired, so we used him for that too."
A former coastguard, farmer and fisherman, 84-year-old McQuilkin remembers an island with a population of over 400 that offered a wealth of trades to its young people. Despite having witnessed an 80 per cent drop in the number of residents during his lifetime, McQuilkin is upbeat about Rathlin's tourism lifeline.
"This is the first generation in some time where people have come back for work," he says. "If the tourism wasn't as good, there wouldn't be as many on the island. There's still hope."