Paul KeenanChristopher Moriarty
The North Bull Island is one of the most remarkable and most treasured of all the landforms in Dublin Bay. That is quite an achievement because the bay contains in a small space a truly amazing abundance and variety of natural and man-made habitats which serve both wild plants and animals and not so wild humanity in many ways.
By far the greater part of the island of Ireland has stood above the sea for some tens of millions of years.
The Bull Island that we know and love, in contrast, first appeared in or about the year 1800 when it appears on a map as a pinprick of a sand bank near Clontarf.
By the time the next map was published, 19 years later, it had grown to be a long and narrow strip of land. It has never stopped growing and now occupies a very substantial area, extending from the North Bull Wall to Sutton Creek. In winter the island and its lagoon make a refuge for myriads of migratory birds which feed on the worms and shellfish that burrow in the silt between the tides.
This has resulted in a profound change from a popular wildfowling area to being a bird sanctuary and then given world status by its designation in 1981 as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
This might not matter to many of the thousands of citizens who enjoy the freedom of Dollymount Strand, the outer edge of the island – but it is a clear demonstration of the range of usage from an extremely special place for the few to an immensely popular spot for all sorts and conditions of men, women and children.
The history of the island coincides with the development of the port of Dublin following the completion first of the Great South Wall and later of its northern companion.
In the course of the first 100 years sufficient dry land accumulated to make space for a golf club, while the 20th Century saw a military shooting range and then a second golf club. Ideas for the creation of a seaside resort were mooted and, happily for all but a small handful of entrepreneurs, abandoned.
The golf clubs are pretty well hidden by the sand dunes and the island remains a paradise of wild creatures – easy to reach by any citizen and big enough to offer wilderness space for those who seek remote places.
Kieran McNally is a lover of the island and presents an account of its history in 44 brief chapters wherein many gems of obscure information may be found. Sadly, he has a cavalier attitude towards the conventions of editing. This has led to many small but irritating errors. He provides abundant references to each chapter but, unfortunately, fails to collect them in an index, which will exasperate the very reader for whom such notes might be of interest.