![]() ![]() His first major book, Seanchas ón Oileán Tiar, published in 1956, was dictated to Robin Flower. He received great encouragement from the scholars Carl Marstrander and Robin Flower and later as editors from Brian Ó Ceallaigh and Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha. ![]() Having been taught to write only English in school, he was faced in his middle years with the challenge of learning to write in his native Irish in order to record the life and history of his people. A farmer and fisherman, he lived all his life on the Island. ![]() Now you'll have to excuse me but I have to light the candles before it gets dark.Perhaps the greatest of the Island writers. In September the café and hostel will close and Killian will return to the mainland.Īs sun fades he smiles and says "I'm not sure what I'll do between seasons but going back into banking is unlikely to be an option. The other night I was out fishing and a common dolphin was swimming around me. "So far I've seen basking sharks, porpoises and minke whales. Some nights I'll go for a run around the island or a swim" he tells me.Īnd since he opened for business in June he's been treated to a daily wildlife spectacle in the quiet waters off Kerry's West Coast. Whatever I don't use I give to the hostel guests. Usually I'd catch some pollock or mackerel. No ones quite sure how it got here.Īt night-time when the tourists, which can number over 300 a day in peak season, are gone home and the café is closed up Killian grabs his fishing rod and heads out to sea. ![]() The very bar counter used in the 1970 film Ryan's Daughter, which starred John Mills and Robert Mitchum and which was shot outside Dingle, serves as the cafe counter here. There's no electricity or hot water on the island so Killian's café must do with a gas burner to serve hot drinks. In total there is space for 24 guests split between two homes and a third cottage is being prepared for next season. "I never knew love like it until Joey came along - it's because of him really that I decided we needed to fix up the houses" he explains.Īnd so today you can book a bed in the very home Peig Sayers lived in before leaving the island. Billy tells me as we skip through the waves, with Fungi in hot pursuit and my children in a state of unbridled euphoria, that the arrival of his son gave him the push he needed to start this new business. On July 21st Billy's partner Alice gave birth to their little baby Joey. Incidentally it was while working in an identical role in the late nineties that Daithi O'Sé got was discovered by a television producer for TG4. Even out here amongst the sheep and the surf it wouldn't do to keep them waiting.īilly, from the Dingle area, had been working as a tour guide and ferry driver out to the Blasket Islands for a few years. I really felt I made the right choice by going along with Billy's plan and since opening in mid-June we've been run off our feet" he says, while constantly keeping an eye on the café in case any customers ramble in. "The life I was living in Dublin just wasn't me. Killian O'Riordan looks out from the cafe into the strand on the Great Blasket Island Last December he took up his position with AIB but within weeks he knew he'd made the wrong choice. "I didn't really think about it too much at first but last summer I came to have a look and of course I was intrigued" admits Killian. The plan was that Billy would purchase a speed boat to ferry visitors and 'messages' across from Dingle while Killian would stay on the island and keep the café and accommodation ticking over. His good friend Billy O'Connor, whom he met at boarding school in Roscrea, asked Killian if he'd be interested in going into business as his grandfather owned a few of the properties on the Great Blasket and they were now sitting idle. I was basically reviewing overdraft accounts, the work was repetitive and after a few months I realised that maybe this wasn't for me." I was fortunate enough to get a job with the AIB's Financial Solutions Group up in Sandyford. Sitting on the grass with a coffee in hand and looking back onto Dun Chaoin and the Dingle Peninsula he explains "I graduated from UCC in Commerce, so it was inevitable that I'd go into banking. Just a few short months ago 25-year-old Killian O'Riordan, from Rosscarbery in Cork, could be found in a shirt and tie busily crunching numbers in an office in Dublin where he worked for Allied Irish Bank - today he co-runs the only café in the Blasket Islands as well as a hostel. ![]()
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