Plan a Visit
There are two ways to visit and experience Blasket culture, literature, and history. On the tip of the peninsula which faces Great Blasket, in Dún Chaoin, is the Blasket Centre. This purpose-built facility hosts a range of material, audio-visual, and photographic exhibitions on the islanders and their lives. During the summer months, it is also possible to visit Great Blasket Island, and tour the abandoned village there. Click on the links below to find out how to access both of these experiences.
The Blasket Centre
The Blasket Centre is located in Dún Chaoin, Co. Kerry. Facilities include parking, a café, and interpretative exhibitions exploring the lives of the islanders. Click here for opening hours, admission prices, and details of other heritage sites in the nearby area.
“The place in which I was born was a small remote townland in Dunquin at the foot of Mount Eagle – in the townland in which the legendary House of Mór stands. My father and mother didn’t marry there; they did so in the paris of Ventry where they lived for some time before moving to Dunquin.”
– Peig Sayers, The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island (1936).
Great Blasket Island
On Great Blasket Island, the remains of the village and various other points of interest are still visible, and the islands are a beautifully rich and unspoilt landscape. Click here to access information on ferries, island tours, and important health and safety warnings.
“I stayed a while watching and listening to the cries of the birds, the moaning of the seals, and the murmur of the waves. Then I turned up towards the Gaps, the highest hill on the island, soft clumps of thrift under my feet, and a wide open view southward to Iveragh and the Skelligs, where the gannet nests, and so eastward to the Bay of Dingle and Kerry Head.”
– Maurice O’Sullivan, Twenty Years A-Growing (1933).