The Inishkea Islands () are situated off the coast of the Belmullet peninsula in County Mayo in Ireland. They are believed to be named after a saint that lived there, called Saint Kea. There are two main islands – Inishkea North and Inishkea South.
In the 19th-century, the islands were notable for the pagan religious traditions practiced there. One tradition involved a small terracotta statue of a saint known as the Godstone, or in Irish, which was worshipped as an idol. It is possible that the remoteness of the islands somehow preserved some form of pre-Christian Celtic religion. In the early 1900s, the islands were populated by more than 300 people, who were monolingual Irish speakers, but the island gradually depopulated after 10 fishermen drowned at sea during a fierce storm in October 1927. Two people live on the island now, but the population increases to about fifteen during the summer months from May to September.
History
The earliest evidence of settlement on the island goes back at least 5,000 years and the islands have numerous archaeological sites from the Neolithic and several Early Christian monastic sites. Early Christian sites dating from the sixth to the tenth centuries are found on most of the Erris islands including Duvillaun and Inishglora.
The islands had a number of owners including the Barretts, who were a Norman family, the McCormacks who were given the island by King James I and finally the O'Donnells of Newport who took control of them in the 18th century. It is believed by many historians that the islands were abandoned in the Middle Ages before being re-inhabited in the 17th century.
Famine
During the Irish Famine, the people on the Inishkea islands were not immune. Like most places in the west of Ireland, the pattern of lazy beds can be seen on the island wherever there was enough soil to sow potatoes, even on the outer reaches near the cliff edge. While the lack of shelter would have made conditions too harsh for potatoes to flourish, the threat of starvation meant that every option had to be tried.
However, unlike other areas of the west coast, the famine did not affect the Inishkeas as badly as the mainland. While the population on the mainland fell dramatically during the famine years, it was the opposite on the Inishkea islands because it would appear that potato blight was confined to the mainland. The prevailing winds would have kept the blight off the islands to a degree. The islanders also had the tradition of fishing.
Piracy
It is alleged that the inhabitants were always vigorously engaged in piracy from the island. They attacked and robbed boats passing west of them. "This was the whole island and [the operation] was highly organised, robbing the boats, taking the cargo and distributing it across the island. Wrecking was common along the west coast so the authorities had to deploy Royal Naval ships to stamp it out and there were islanders shot and killed as they attacked the passing vessels. The deliberate wrecking was an alternative enterprise because in the areas along the west coast there was no regulation. However, when coastguards were posted to coastal sites in the latter part of the 19th century, they were despised and hated and they were a disaster, economically, for these islands because they stamped out wrecking and smuggling."