Carbery's Hundred Isles are the islands along the coast of the Baronies of

Carbery West Carbery West ( ga, Cairbrigh Thiar) is a barony in County Cork in Ireland. It has been split since the nineteenth century into East and West Divisions (''an Roinn Thoir/Thiar''). Legal context Baronies were created after the Norman invasion of I ...

and Carbery East, successors to the medieval

Barony of Carbery Carbery, or the Barony of Carbery, was once the largest barony in Ireland, and essentially a small, semi-independent kingdom on the southwestern coast of Munster, in what is now County Cork, from its founding in the 1230s by Donal Gott MacCarthy ...

, on the

Celtic Sea The Celtic Sea ; cy, Y Môr Celtaidd ; kw, An Mor Keltek ; br, Ar Mor Keltiek ; french: La mer Celtique is the area of the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast of Ireland bounded to the east by Saint George's Channel; other limits includ ...

, in the far south-west of Ireland. It is a term which includes those islands in and around Long Island Bay and Roaringwater Bay,

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns a ...

. Because of the Gulf Stream influence, the islands have a mild climate. However, most of them are exposed to the elements, so patches of lush vegetation contrast with treeless expanses of hill and bog, fringed with rocky cliffs and mixed shingle and sand beaches. The eastern islands within the estuary of the Ilen River are more sheltered and fertile. The phrase "Carbery's Hundred Isles" is taken from the narrative poem ''The Sack of Baltimore'' by Thomas Davis, published in 1844, which tells of the raid on the village of Baltimore by Algerian pirates in 1631, in which most of the inhabitants were kidnapped and brought to the slave markets of Algiers. Setting the scene, the first line reads "The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles". This is an instance of poetic license, since there are no more than 50 islands in the archipelago. The popularity of the poem in the 19th century meant that the phrase passed into popular parlance, and subsequently into tourist-industry literature. The area was visited by writer

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...

in the 1720s, who described the islands and area in a poem.

Islands

The largest islands in the area include Cléire and Sherkin Island. Others include: * Long Island * Castle Island * Carthy's Islands * Horse Island, County Cork * West Skeam Island * East Skeam Island * Heir Island * Calves Island (Calf Island West, Calf Island Middle, Calf Island East) *

Spanish Island Spanish Island () is an island of Ireland in the Roaring Water Bay, north of Baltimore, County Cork. References See also * List of islands of Ireland A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * ...

* Ringarogy Island * Goat Island (Beg/Mór) * Rabbit island

References

External links

Sherkin Island

West Cork Islands
{{coord missing, County Cork Islands of County Cork