Blasket Islands Kerry Ireland (Family outing in July, 2015 Sweet memories with my son Millen CV - late) By Chry_Martin (Martin Varghese - Ireland)
The islands were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population and today are part of the Gaeltacht. At its peak, the islands had 175 residents. The population declined to 22 by 1953. The government evacuated the remaining residents to the mainland on 17 November 1953 because of increasingly extreme weather that left the island cut off from emergency services. The evacuation was seen as necessary by both the Islanders and the government.[2]
Many former residents still live on the Dingle Peninsula, within sight of their former home.
The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries particularly from writers and linguists such as Robin Flower, George Derwent Thomson and Kenneth H. Jackson. Thanks to their encouragement and that of others, a number of books were written by islanders that record much of the islands' traditions and way of life. These include An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.
The Blasket Islands have been called Next Parish America, based on the idea that the next parish west of the islands would be in North America, and the Irish language did not historically distinguish the United States of America from Canada. In fact, the next Roman Catholic parish west of the Blasket Islands is St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
#MartinVarghese #KerryIreland #BlasketIslands
