Archaeology

The islands are formed of rock regarded amongst Western Europe’s most ancient – from six hundred million to two thousand million years old. Granitoid gneiss is extremely hard and erodes very slowly. Magical rock formations, deep caves and jagged cliffs have been designed by thousands of years of thunderous seas and storms.

A couple of years ago after some ferocious winter storms I laughingly explained to a member of the Agricultural Department in Vinegar hill Enniscorthy that " thank goodness I'm not going to be here in 500 years time. Because I would only have this granite gneiss outcrop to stand upon as all the soil would by then have eroded".

I base my supposition on the fact that we are losing up to approx. 2 m of soil per annum in erosion. And as the island is less than 700 m across the entire land mass will have eroded within that span.

At the end of 2009 Patrick G B took these photographs whilst on a day trip to check on the livestock. This bank of erosion has occurred just to the south of the our normal landing place and has taken away a good 40 percent of our pathway up to the buildings.

Perhaps global warming has indeed played its trump card on this island by delivering annual rainfalls higher than any of the years before?

Midlandian glacial action (20,000 to 10,000 BC) probably deposited a marine till or drift highly potent in calcium carbonate therefore making the islands fertile. This ice sheet may well have been the architect of St. Patrick’s Bridge – a fascinating ridge of rock and shingle curving back from the northern most point of the Little Saltee to the mainland east of Kilmore Quay. Perhaps a glacial moraine. Many other legends (geological and fantasy) do the rounds of the local fishermen’s hostelries! Whatever the correct reason for this tidal conundrum, it offers ‘the’ most spectacular designs of waves and surf throughout all seasons.

We are uncertain as to the actual date of man's first habitation of the islands but it is probable that people were living there as long ago as 3500 to 2000 BC. A crude flint dating from Neolithic times was unearthed (1957) on the Great Saltee giving provenance to new Stone Age Man. Their way of life was largely agricultural. They were blessed with a temperate climate, fertile soil and an abundance of fish and sea bird's eggs.