You know you can just watch the seals and the beach and the wildlife and enjoy the solitude and how untouched it all is,” said Billy O’Connor, whose grandfather, local solicitor Peter Callery, and Peter’s brother Jim bought part of the island in the 1980s.
There are not many places in the world you can go and have totally pristine lands and water and totally switch off.” April, he said, is one of the most magical times to visit, with the great white beach blackened with thousands of seals.
The sense of isolation is what attracted Ireland’s former prime minister Charles Haughey to buy neighbouring Inishvickillane island, but also the reason it drove families away, including Peig Sayers, whose 1936 biography used to be a compulsory part of the Irish language curriculum.
“I think we will enjoy watching the sunsets, looking at the stars with no light pollution and winding down with a book in the candlelight,” said Rosenfeld, 26, who has never been on the island that will be her home from 1 April to 31 September.
“I genuinely think we will fall in with the rhythm of our new life and sense of freedom,” said Hayes, who himself has only been on the island once.
