Ireland's Eye () is a small long-uninhabited island off the coast of County Dublin, Ireland. In ancient times it was called 'Adros' by Ptolemy, 'Adrea Deserta' by Pliny, and 'Andros' and 'Edria' by other early navigators. Colloquially called "the Eye", the island is situated directly north of Howth village and harbour and is easily reached by regular seasonal tourist boats, which both circumnavigate it and drop off day trippers. There is a yacht anchorage on its north side, and kayakers can also land.
The island is formed from quartzite, greywacke, and some sandstone, and has soils based on glacial drift. It is home to nationally significant bird populations, notably of guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, cormorants, and gulls, as well as modest numbers of puffins and peregrine falcons. There is a colony of grey seals, the surrounding waters also host harbour seals and harbour porpoise, while on land there are rats and rabbits. There is a range of plants, including some rare species and some specific to vegetated cliffs. The island has been essentially uninhabited for centuries but holds the ruins of an early church and a Martello tower.
The Eye is the basis for both a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area, and is incorporated within the Howth Special Amenity Area and the Dublin Bay Biosphere, among other designations. It is now part of Fingal for administrative purposes, having earlier been moved from the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin to County Dublin along with Howth, Sutton, Baldoyle, and Kilbarrack. The island was for centuries a possession of the Archdiocese of Dublin, and then a component of the Howth Estate. It was sold to the Tetrarch investment group as part of a deal finalised in 2019.
Etymology The name of the island is often assumed to be related to the eye, but it has a quite different origin. According to Patrick Weston Joyce in Irish Local Names Explained (1870), the island was originally called Inis Éireann ("Éire's Island"). Éire was both a female name and the Irish-language name for Ireland. Joyce says that the Vikings translated this to Ireland's Ey, with ey being the Old Norse word for "island".
The traditional Irish name of the island was Inis mac Nessan, now Inis Mac Neasáin, "island of the sons of Neasán".Ireland's Eye/Inis Mac Neasáin. Placenames Database of Ireland. This was historically Anglicized as 'Inishmacnessan'O'Donovan, John. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (translation). Hodges, Smith and Company, 1856. p.69 and called in Latin Insula Filiorum Nessani. The island has also been known in the past as Inis Faithlenn, "the grassy island".
Nature Location and structure
Ireland's Eye occupies a prominent site off Howth Head and is a feature of the Howth village and harbour area. It comprises the main island, a range of sea stacks and rocks and a grassy islet, (the) Thulla. The Eye lies 1,200–1,500 metres from Howth Harbour and around 13 km from Dublin city centre. The main island is roughly triangular, the points lying to the northwest, northeast and south, and around 600–700 metres along the edges. The terrain slopes broadly downhill from north to south, and to some extent from northeast to southwest. The most prominent feature is a sea stack called "the Steer", at the northwestern corner of the island, while at the northeastern point is a group of rocks or small sea stacks known as "the Stags". Closer to the Steer than the Stags on the northern coast is Seal's Cave, one of several sea caves. On the south-southwestern face of the island is Carrigeen Bay, with a sandy beach, and above that a shingle beach. Linked by a line of shelving rocks, exposed at low tide ("drying rocks"), the grass-surfaced islet of Thulla lies south of the main island, and the Rowan Rocks to the southeast and east of cliffs on the eastern aspect of the Eye. Also on the eastern coast are two inlets, Samper Hole nearer the Stags, and the longer and narrow Long Hole just north of the rocks linking the main island to Thulla. Between the island and Baldoyle Spit off Portmarnock Point is Howth Sound, and to the southwest the channel between the island and Howth Harbour, while in all other directions open sea extends for kilometres. The main island has sea-level coast on the western side, but on the east cliffs are 10s of metres high, while the island's highest point is about 69m above sea level. In total, there are just over 2.5 kilometres of cliff. Thulla is at most two metres above the water.
Geology, hydrology and climate Ireland's Eye and its associated rocks are formed from Cambrian quartzite and greywacke, notably visible in the steep cliffs on the northern and eastern faces of the main island. The visible sections display faulting and folding. The island, and Howth Head, lie at the northern end of the Bray geological series. Three lithostratic groups exist in the bedrock of the island, being, south-to-north, the Thulla Formation, the Carrigeen Formation and the Steer Formation; these have parallels in three of the five formations comprising the bedrock of Howth Head, in the Nose of Howth group. Sandstone is also present, and the sea stacks are primarily formed from quartzite and sandstone. Embedded in the bedrock are a small range of minerals. Full fossils are scarce but there is a reasonable presence of trace fossils.
Above the bedrock are deposits of glacial drift, from which the island's soils are also formed. The soils are siliceous and acidic. At Carrigeen Bay are sand and shingle, developing into low sand hills inland, with modest presence of marram-bound dune.
There are no streams on the Eye but the island has one known regular spring, located 145 metres southeast of the site chosen for the Martello Tower. This spring was once substantial enough to fill a small pond, but the area around it has become sedimented and overgrown.
The climate is similar to that of coastal Fingal, with a mean air temperature of 12 degrees Celsius. Summer has notable occurrence of westerly winds, while easterly winds are more common from February to May, but the overall leading winds are from the southwest.
Habitats, fauna and flora Habitats In a survey in 2016, 11 land habitats and 4 maritime were identified; the marine aspect includes both intertidal and subtidal reefs, on the eastern edge of the island and in nearby waters. The terrestrial habitats include two types of grassland, three types of marsh, two rock types, two beach types, the stonework of the two buildings, and the dominant habitat, dense bracken cover with a bramble understorey.
Flora
The flora of the island differs considerably from that of Howth, partly due to island conditions, and to the large bird population and resulting guano. The primary vegetation types are bracken and dry grassland, notably of red fescue grass. Among the bracken plants are nettle, false oat-grass and hogweed, as well as some woodland species, lesser celandine and lords-and-ladies, and with rosebay willow herb (also known as fireweed) found at the edges of bracken patches. Bluebells and dog-violet are joined on thinner soils by the rare spring squill, and also mouse-ear and knotted clover. In some areas spear thistle and creeping thistle, and cow parsley, are also found. Elder and sycamore trees are found in small volume, and some rusty willow, ash, prunus and pyrus examples also.
Additional plant types are found near and on the cliffs, including rock samphire, rock spurrey, tree mallow and sea lavender, as well as the uncommon sea stock's-bill. In the exposed rocky areas near the cliffs, and on the cliff faces, there are also numbers of biting and English stonecrop. Near the beach are also found prickly saltwort and the rare and "near-threatened" henbane, and in an area of coastal grassland, Portland spurge and the spring squill. In at least one shingle area is some lyme-grass, and shingle areas also manifest sea mayweed, wild pansy and sea sandwort. The shingle areas are enriched by deposition of seaweed while having high soil salinity. Within the small area of sand dune, aside from the anchoring marram grass, there are examples of sea rocket, sea spurge, sea radish, curled dock and common stork's-bill, and more, as well as the acidic indicator plant, mouse-ear hawkweed. At the inner boundary of the sand and shingle areas is found a fairly rare plant, Campion hybrid. A rare variety of sea kale, listed among Red List vascular plants, has been seen historically, while a small number of invasive species, including stinking iris, montbretia and Japanese rose, have been observed.
The two historic buildings form a habitat zone of their own, and feature plants such as wall barley, sea fern-grass, dog-rose and dandelion, with the vicinity of the church also holding common orache. In the area of damp grassland around the natural spring site are plants typical of such terrain, and others fitting the marsh profile, indicating a history of greater waterflow. Specifically, there are examples of soft and common spike-rush, water starwort, pink water-speedwell and creeping buttercup. Brackish water seepage is indicated in at least one small area of saltmarsh, and leads to the presence of species such as saltmarsh-grass, saltmarsh rush, sea-milkwort, lesser sea-spurrey, brookweed and distant sedge.
The major fire of 2015, which especially affected the southeast of the island, allowed a few specific plants, such as changing forget-me-not, sticky mouse-ear and prickly sow-thistle, to flourish. It also provided visibility of the way the vegetation of the island spreads and recovers, notably the dominant bracken scrub. At least one invasive species, Bilbao's fleabane, was also spotted in thinner areas of bracken.
Birds
The island as a whole, and especially the Steer sea stack, host a large variety of seabirds, some with nationally significant populations. As of the last published survey, ten species of seabird and at least twelve other species bred there, and a dozen more species were observed.
The island is a protected area, and seasonal visitor numbers are modest, leaving the birds little disturbed. Between 2016 and the previous major survey the population of three species of seabird had increased sharply, and others modestly, a couple were stable, and two had declined a little. As of the most recent multi-month study, in 2016, there are more than 4,000 guillemots and 1,000 razorbills, and hundreds of pairs of kittiwakes, cormorants and European herring gulls. Smaller numbers of fulmars, shag and great black-backed gull are also found, as well as some lesser black-backed gulls. There were observations of black guillemot and Manx shearwater, but these species have not been observed to breed on the island. Ireland's fifth gannet colony became established on the Stack around 1989, and there were subsequently more than 100 pairs breeding there each year. There are also up to a dozen breeding pairs of puffins, which used to be common; the Eye remains the best site to see these birds in Dublin.
A limited number of peregrine falcons are found. In the 18th and early 19th century, goshawks were noted as building their nests here,Samuel Lewis, A topographical dictionary of the parishes towns and villages of Dublin City and County, 1837 but they are not listed in modern bird surveys covering Ireland's Eye. Among non-passerine species, a few shelduck and oystercatcher are routinely observed, as well as ringed plover. At least 17 passerine species have been counted, 8 definitely breeding on the island; examples include the hooded crow, rock pipit, stonechat, wren, blackbird and reed bunting. In 2016, for the first time, robins were observed to be breeding.
Two breeds of goose overwinter on the island, greylag and pale-bellied Brent geese. Other visiting or winter-passage species include the short-eared owl and the sandwich tern.
Other fauna