Inishbofin Island has overcome official neglect to become a thriving tourist destination mainly thanks to the efforts of the islanders, writes Paul Whitington
From the old road at the southern end of Inishbofin you can clearly make out the ruined houses and buildings on its near neighbour, Inishshark. Some have roofs, others don't, but all are long deserted, laid bare by relentless Atlantic winds and storms.
The island was evacuated by the government in 1960, and natives moved to houses in and around Cleggan on the mainland. The lack of a safe harbour had become a problem, and there had been a number of sea deaths, but, says Bofin's new development officer, Simon Murray, "It should never have been allowed to happen." There had been a strong bond between the two islands - Simon's mother taught in the school over there - and the people of Inishshark are sadly missed by their neighbours.
Perhaps it's this grim and permanent reminder of what could happen that has spurred Bofin on to survive and thrive in very difficult circumstances. Long overshadowed by the Arans, Bofin was forced to develop a tentative tourist trade more or less without government assistance. "If you went into Bord Fáilte in Galway," remembers Murray, "all you'd ever hear about was the Arans - there'd never be any mention of us." And yet, since 1969, without grants or even guidance, Inishbofin has somehow managed to support two independent hotels (one is a rarity on most islands), and build up a homespun tourist industry that has quietly gone from strength to strength. "We survived," says Murray, but Bofin has done more than that, for even in the gloom-laden years since the tourist nightmare of September 11th, the island has enjoyed "two very good summers". Inishbofin's appeal is hard to pinpoint. A five-by-three kilometre strip of land on the edge of Clew Bay, it's a constantly undulating island, but the hills are not high and its beauty, though compelling, is low-key. In places the landscape is boggy and bleakly rocky, in imitation of neighbouring Connemara, but in others it's rolling and almost gentle in a wild, Atlantic sort of way. There is wind-blasted sea scenery on the old road around the Westquarter, a number of lonely lakes inland, and two beautiful beaches at Bofin's eastern end that offer sweeping views over the Twelve Pins and up as far as Croagh Patrick in north Mayo.
But beyond all this wild scenery is a kind of serenity that seems to overtake visitors the moment they step off the boat.
There's nothing too fancy about the cosy homeliness of the Doonmore or Day's Hotel, and there's nothing much to see on the island except sea views, birds and sunsets, but Bofin seems to have a strange power to enchant and charm the unsuspecting tourist, because Simon Murray reckons that around 70 per cent of their custom at the Doonmore is repeat business. No one, they say, ever visits Inishbofin once.
"You even get families coming back generation after generation," says Murray. "You get third generation repeat business. It's hard for me to see because I was born and bred here, but people seem to find something special about the place, that keeps bringing them back, whether it's the peace or the fact that they can relax better, but a lot of people who come here see it as their second home." Simon's mother, Margaret, who runs the Doonmore Hotel, remembers vividly her first visit to the island in 1948, as a child. "I'm very glad I saw it that long ago, because you had the feeling looking at the way of life that it hadn't really changed in hundreds of years - though of course it changed very quickly after." She remembers there being "only one bicycle on the island, and no fences or poles, just the old stone walls. It was lovely, really, though you didn't realise it at the time." It was, however, a hard life. "There was no electricity," she remembers, "no phones, no running water, no ferry, and the way people used to have to work." The sea was a constant menace, and though the fishermen of Bofin and Shark were renowned as the finest boatmen on the western seaboard, drownings around the treacherous coastline were an all too common occurrence.
It wasn't all hardship, though. Mary Lavelle, of the island's Heritage Centre, told me how her father recalls "the dances there'd be in the houses when he was young. There'd be two dances a week, and if it was your turn to host it, you'd no choice. Everyone would turn up and they'd dance all night, and tell ghost stories and play cards." Even in Mary's own childhood, in the 60s and 70s, "there was a great sense of fun on the island. On the days when they gathered to sell the lobsters, buyers would come from the mainland, and curraghs would appear in the harbour from the back of the island, and there'd be a three-day hooley." By then, though, the times were changing. As the herring began to disappear, and fish stocks generally began to dwindle. "The fishermen just got disillusioned when they found that all their hard work wasn't bringing in very much at all," says Margaret Day. Tourism was the only hope.
Day, from Inishturk, came to the island as a newlywed in 1948, and gradually found herself falling into the hotel business. Her husband's family owned the old landlord's house in the harbour. "It was fairly run down," she remembers, "so we decided to try and restore it and start taking in guests." It wasn't until the 1960s that visitors started to arrive in numbers.
A mile or so west along the shoreline, Margaret Murray and her husband were also taking in guests. That both these women managed to run hotels while raising families on an island without electricity, phones or central heating is a testament to their fortitude. "It was difficult," says Mrs Murray with a smile. Her business did well, and she registered with Bord Fáilte in 1969, but "it was frustrating - they couldn't give out information about us because there wasn't a licensed ferry at the time." Inishbofin depended on trawlers and the mailboat for transport to and from the mainland until the 1970s, which placed severe restrictions on the growth of tourism. A real ferry did eventually come, however, along with running water (1972), electricity (1982), and a proper phone service (1987), and since then, visitor numbers have rocketed. Outgoing island manager Noel Schofield reckons they now get upwards of 500 visitors a day during the summer months. Some of these are daytrippers, but crucially, Bofin attracts large numbers of walkers, divers and island enthusiasts, who tend to stay a few days or a whole week. And that's the kind of tourism an island needs to keep its economy turning.
And the future looks bright for Bofin, because finally, after years of campaigning, they've been given the necessary finance to accommodate an air service. Not only will this lengthen the short tourist season (year-round employment is still a big problem on the island), but it will also make winters a lot easier for the islanders themselves.
"Believe it or not," says Simon Murray, "There are people on islands who don't like boats. And the crossings can be pretty unpleasant in the winter. The air service (scheduled to start in 2005) will give us a choice, and when you live on an island, it's all about choice." With a youngish population holding steady at 200, Bofin's future seems secure.
Which is good news, because visiting this place without its people would be unthinkable. On a mild September afternoon, we are strolling near the island's famous blow holes with Brian Hughes, of Connemara Safari, who organises island-hopping tours, when we suddenly see a huge grey seal chasing mackerel into a dead-end inlet directly below us and trapping them along the rocks. The good news spreads, and he is soon joined by two associates, and we watch in fascination as they hunt the unfortunate fishes with agility and grace. I've a feeling you'd be unlikely to see anything like it anywhere else but Bofin.