RATHLIN ISLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1938, Page 5

RATHLIN ISLAND

WHERE BRUCE MET THE SPIDER. A GEOLOGICAL CURIOSITY. There are comparatively few islands off the coast of Ulster and only two are inhabited —Rathlin, off North Antrim, and the Copelands, off Northeast Down and near the entrance to Belfast Lough. By far the more interesting is Rathlin.

Six miles long and one broad, Rathlin is a geological curiosity set in the sea ’twixt Scotland and Ireland. It is the only fragment to keep its head above water of a great tract of country which at some distant period was buried in the deep. Its basaltic rocks reveal remarkable columnar formations.

Robert Bruce sought sanctuary in this island, in which he gathered fresh hope from the persistence of the try-try-try again spider. ■ St. Columba founded a monastery there. In 790 the island was sacked by the Danes. In Queen Elizabeth’s days the Earl of Essex caused every man, woman, and child on it to be massacred, including the wives of Sorley Boy Mac Donnell and his followers, with whom he was at war. To come to our own day, Marconi made some of his earliest experiments in wireless between Rathlin and the mainland.

The islanders are simple and kindly. They have very infrequent intercourse with the mainland, which to

them is foreign territory. When the wind blows in from the west the Atlantic rollers make boat connection impossible. During recent storms aviators have risked their lives landing stores. Although the population is a mere handful—about 300 —it shows traces of two different peoples. Mostly they are fisherfolk. In summer boating excursions from Ballycastle, available to tourists, make delightful contact with these primitive people, who greet the stranger with a genuine old-world welcome. Rathlin. or Raghery (its older name) is both near and remote. It would not be an Irish island if it held no paradox.