How many islands are there around this island of ours? And how many of them have you been curious enough to visit? Dubliners know Ireland's Eye and Dalkey Island; most people have been, surely, on one of all three Aran Islands. In the North, the Copelands were, perhaps, most interesting to bird-watchers; not so many had taken a trip to Rathlin. There's a whole world of islands to be explored off our West Coast.
But one island name keeps coming up, for good reason: Sherkin. Now those who have never been there can see it clear, for with this issue of the quarterly tabloid-sized Sherkin Comment, comes a Silver Anniversary glossy magazine, beautifully illustrated. Sherkin Island Marine Station, we are told "is situated on 16 acres at the North-West corner of Sherkin Island which is one-and-a-quarter miles off the SW coast of Ireland and off-shore from the fishing village of Baltimore.
The station complex now consists of five laboratories, together with archives and library buildings. Among the studies the station has carried out are the continuing monitoring of the shores of Roaringwater Bay, phytoplankton survey (i.e. floating plant organisms), an otter survey and others. Now Matt Murphy and his activities are probably best known to readers of his tabloid quarter Sherkin Comment, where a wide net is thrown. The main article in this issue (number 26) is a centre spread on Glenstal and its Forest, photographed by Fr Philip Tierney, OSB. An article on the same by Anthony Keane, OSB. There is a resounding editorial by Matt himself on Water, Our Precious Resource.
It may sound ironic that after recent floods, but Matt is arguing that "we waste water, pollute it and, of course, expect to get it free." He wonders if there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect its use and its quality from pollution. Those who live on well-water are aware of this. Many other articles of general interest, Oscar Merne on Black Guillemots, and a page in colour of Sherkin butterflies. 75p a copy or posted, £4.50 a year in Ireland.
Another island: Hy Brasil: a friend reminded the writer of Gerald Griffin's poem on the same (different spelling). On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,/A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell . . . and Griffin goes on to relate how a man from Ara sailed west "For though Ara was holy, Hy Brasil was blest, "Reason told him to turn back, but no "The warning of reason was spoken in vain,/He never revisited Ara again." Worth looking up.