Shore Island

Half a mile of deep tidal water lies between Shore Island and the County Clare shore. Ten minutes by small boat. Far enough that the cattle grazing here have no neighbours, and the silence has nothing to interrupt it.

This is the west of Ireland in its older form. A working agricultural island in the broad estuary where the River Shannon, the longest in Ireland, meets the Atlantic. The Shannon has carried Vikings, monks, and trading ships for fifteen hundred years. Today it carries you.

The Land

Thirty acres of grassland, used year-round for cattle. The island sits in the Fergus arm of the Shannon Estuary near the parish of Kildysart, in the same scatter of low, green islands that includes Canon Island with its medieval Augustinian monastery, and the larger Inishmacowney, inhabited until 1976. You are buying into a landscape that people have worked since the early Middle Ages, and have only recently let return to quiet.

Fresh water has already been piped to the island. The shell of an old dwelling house remains, along with several other ruins.

Those ruins are not just atmosphere. In a country with strict rural development rules, they are the legal foundation for building a habitable home, subject to planning approval. They are the difference between a project and an impossibility.

What You Build

Most island listings sell what was built fifty years ago. This one sells the right to make something thoughtful from raw ground, on land where Atlantic light arrives from one side and sheltered estuary water from the other.

A traditional Clare stone farmhouse rebuilt from its own footings. A glass and timber retreat. A small working farm. A writer's house far enough from any road that no road can find it. The choice is the buyer's.

The Setting

You are in County Clare, which means more than a postal code. North of the island rise the Cliffs of Moher and the lunar limestone of the Burren. South across the estuary lies County Kerry. West along the coast runs the Wild Atlantic Way, one of the longest defined coastal touring routes in the world.

The estuary itself is a designated Special Area of Conservation. It is also home to Ireland's only resident population of bottlenose dolphins, which surface in the channels between the islands on most still mornings.

Closer to the island you have the ruins of Canon Island monastery, the Napoleonic-era Kilkerrin Battery Fort near Labasheeda, the harbour villages of Kildysart and Killimer, and the music sessions of Ennis, the county town of Clare, twenty minutes from your mainland mooring.

Access

By small boat (15 HP engine):

• Crovraghan, Kildysart: 5 minutes
• Rosscliff, Ballycully: 10 minutes
• Kildysart Pier: 15 minutes
• Foynes, County Limerick: 30 minutes
• Kilrush Creek Marina: 60 minutes

By car from the mainland mooring:

• Ennis: 20 minutes
• Shannon Airport: 40 minutes
• Limerick City: 60 minutes
• Galway City: 90 minutes

Shannon Airport sits 3.5 miles east of the island as the boat travels, with daily direct flights to London, New York, and Boston. A buyer leaving Manhattan after lunch can be standing on Shore Island before midnight.

Who This Is For

The buyer who wants land more than a building. Someone who has owned villas and is now looking for something a villa cannot offer. Someone willing to row.

Half a mile of deep tidal water. Thirty acres of quiet. The rest is yours to decide.