It may not be as well known as its neighbouring islands of Aran, but Inishbofin, which lies seven miles off the Galway coast, is one of Ireland's most thriving and beautiful offshore islands.
A 40-minute ferry-journey from the north Connemara fishing village of Cleggan, Inishbofin is a physical gem and a favoured spot among botanists, geologists, and environmentalists, mainly due to its huge diversity of natural life.
But Inishbofin is also very much a living, thriving island community, home to 214 people, a population five times less than lived there 100 years ago, but healthy because, after years of decline, the population is beginning to increase, with the current figures up by 14 per cent since 1991, according to the Island Development Committee.
Like many parts of the west, Bofin has been affected by mass emigration and lack of indigenous employment, but its current resurgence is all the greater because of the extra problems it has faced.
As an island community, people were - and remain - remote from services and supplies which most of us take for granted, such as secondary schooling, building materials and fuel, while, as Galway's only non-Irish speaking island, it hasn't received government grant aid on the scale of Aran.
However, in the past decade, the island's decline has been reversed, largely due to a series of initiatives established by locals, which involve job development, tackling the major problem of coastal erosion and adopting a more co-ordinated approach to developing Bofin's tourist industry.
Now many young people have opted to remain on the island, and, with more than 40 children under the age of 12, there's an increased vibrancy, which is especially important in the winter when the visitors have all gone.
Inishbofin's tourist season begins in April and lasts until October. For certain people the island has always acted as a magnet - among those who've spent time there include poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Cecil Day Lewis, Louis McNiece, and Nobel prize winners Joseph Brodsky and Seamus Heaney. American poet Theodore Roethke lived there for a period. So too did Irish writers such as Richard Murphy and Tom McIntyre. Today, the island continues to attract writers, artists and particularly musicians, who come for sessions with the island ceili band - an unusual outfit for such a small population.
Last year's Community Arts Festival - the first ever - included performances from Altan and Macnas, among others.
Divers are drawn to Bofin by the clear water and rich sea life but, for the most part, the island is about family holidays, and one extraordinary aspect of its tourism is the return business - some people have been visiting for up to 50 years, from a time when it was a good deal less accessible than today.
To fully appreciate Bofin, a visitor must like walking. And, despite its smallness, the island has a landscape for every temperament: the west quarter being rocky, wild and boggy by turn and the east part containing long beaches of white sand, and some of the clearest water off Ireland.
Travelling to Bofin, even before disembarking from the boat, the visitor's curiosity is aroused by a formidable stone fort to the right of the island's sheltered harbour. Rising straight up from the rock the fort, which seems to be part of the cliff face, was originally built by a Spanish pirate, according to some local stories. There's no historic record of this, but during the Cromwellian invasion of the 1650s it was used for defence purposes, and is known as Cromwell's Barracks. The section of Bofin on which the fort is located is cut off from the main body of the island by tides for most of the time and can only be reached on foot at low tide. This is a bracing walk, over hills and across fields, and the views are spectacular.
Since earliest times, Bofin has attracted settlers and, in the 7th century, St Colman and his monks left England to establish a monastic settlement there, following a schism between the Celtic and Roman churches. A medieval church now stands on the site of that old monastery.
On Bofin, it's important to leave the road behind, otherwise it's possible to miss its extraordinary geographical features, such as the blow holes in the west and the sand dunes in the east.
There are also stark reminders of the island's relationship with the sea and its dependency on fishing. A John Behan sculpture in the grounds of Bofin's modern church commemorates local people drowned off the island in living memory - more than 70 names. Then, on the windswept, barren, west quarter, there's another Behan cross, which recalls two students from Kansas who drowned on a visit during the 1970s. Most recently, a memorial plaque was unveiled to three men who drowned in 1949 while crossing from Bofin to the nearby island of Inishark. The bodies of two were never found. Inishark, which was even more isolated than Bofin in the days before improved transport, was later depopulated, and the islanders moved to the nearby mainland.
Margaret Day remembers many of those tragedies. As the island nurse from the 1950s to the 1980s, she was involved in all aspects of island life, but she also had a strong entrepreneurial streak which led her to promote Bofin as a tourist destination.
Her husband's family owned the pub, as well as the former landlord's house on the pier, which she developed into Day's Hotel. It is now one of two small, family-run hotels on Bofin, the other being Murray's on the west of the island. In the 1950s Bofin, which had no electricity or running water, was definitely not on the tourist trail, Mrs Day recalls, but some people did need accommodation, including the doctor, who always stayed at the hotel.
Among the first people to carry tourists to Inishbofin was the poet, Richard Murphy, whose family came from Cleggan, where he himself lived for many years.
Murphy, who wrote many poems about Bofin, owned a Galway hooker, the Ave Maria, which he used to bring his visitors on trips around the bay. Bofin was a regular port of call. On one trip, he brought the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, who had tea in Day's.
"We had some magnificent lilies growing outside the hotel at the time, and I remember Sylvia Plath refused to leave without taking a bulb, which I was more than happy to give her," Mrs Day recalls.
Mindful that Bofin's quiet ways and lack of man-made diversions might not appeal to everyone, Mrs Day targeted tourists carefully, appealing especially to English visitors.
"I put an ad in The Observer a couple of times. It ran something like: `Pure Boredom - Nothing to Do. Just Peace and Quiet, Sandy beaches, Shells, Crystal Clear Water, Good Food, Excellent Seafood'. They came in their droves."
Today, when it rains heavily enough to prohibit walking, there are few greater pleasures in life than to sit in front of the crackling fire in Day's, reading or chatting. The comfort almost makes rain bearable.
It rains quite a bit on Bofin, so for people with families it's advisable to bring lots of games and books, as well as gear for outside activities.
Both Day's and Murray's have views to dream about, and both offer excellent food. Murray's Hotel was extended and upgraded two years ago, while the current owners of Day's, Mrs Day's son Brendan and his wife Bridie, are planning a refurbishment of their building in the autumn, installing baths and showers in those bedrooms currently without.
Meanwhile, the island has several quality B&Bs as well as a hostel - totally non-smoking - which has family rooms.
There are two ferries, the Dun Angus and the Aran Queen, each of which sails three times daily between Cleggan and Inishbofin from Easter to October. Tickets for sailings are available in Cleggan.