The Skerries Islands: Shenick, Colt, St Patrick's and Rockabill

Look out from the Skerries shore on a clear day and you are looking at a small archipelago. The town takes its name from the islands, and there are four of them offshore: Shenick, Colt, St Patrick's and Rockabill. Most people only ever see them from the headland, which is fine, because the most interesting things about them are visible from land if you know what you are looking at.

Shenick Island

Shenick is the closest and the one you have a real chance of setting foot on. It sits just off the south shore and carries a Martello tower, one of the early 19th-century coastal defence towers built around Dublin. There is a second tower of the same chain on Red Island in the town, so you can compare the two.

On a low spring tide, the kind that comes around full and new moons, a sandbank is exposed and you can walk out to Shenick across the sand. It is genuinely doable, but it is also where people get caught out. The advice locals give is to start out about half an hour before low tide, not to linger on the island, and to keep an eye on the water, because the tide can come back in quickly across the flats. If you are not confident reading a tide table, this is not the day to improvise. Anyone who has misjudged it will tell you the same thing.

Colt and St Patrick's Island

Colt and St Patrick's lie further out and are not casual walk-to destinations. You see them from the shore rather than visit them on a whim.

St Patrick's Island is the one with the story. It holds the remains of an early Christian church, and it is one of several places in Ireland reputed to be where St Patrick first landed. That tradition is part of why the town and its surrounds carry the Holmpatrick name. From the headland it reads as a low green island with ruins on it; up close it is a piece of early Irish church history sitting offshore.

Colt is the quieter neighbour, a low island with no such headline attached, part of the group that gives the view its shape.

Rockabill

Rockabill is the far one, a pair of granite islets about 7 km off the coast, known as the Cow and the Calf and separated by a narrow channel. The lighthouse on the Cow was built in the 1850s from Mourne granite shipped down from County Down, and it had keepers living on it until it was automated in the 1970s. On a clear day it is the white tower you can pick out on the horizon from the Skerries shore.

What makes Rockabill matter beyond the postcard is the birds. It holds the largest breeding colony of roseate terns in Europe, accounting for the great majority of the northwest European population of the species. The terns are the reason the island is protected and the reason access is restricted; it is a working seabird colony, not a destination. You admire it from a distance, which in this case is the whole point.

From shore versus by boat

Here is the honest breakdown. From the shore you can see all four islands on a clear day, walk out to Shenick on a suitable low tide, and pick out Rockabill lighthouse on the horizon. That covers most of what a visitor wants.

By boat you get closer to the further islands and a proper look at Rockabill and its birdlife from the water, without landing on the protected colony. If boat trips are running from Skerries when you visit, that is the way to see Rockabill at its best. Trips depend on season, weather and who is operating, so check locally rather than assuming; the sea conditions out here are not always cooperative.

The simple plan

For most people the islands are a view to understand rather than a trip to take. Walk the Red Island headland, learn which island is which, time a low spring tide if you want to reach Shenick and its tower, and look for the lighthouse on the skyline. Do that and the offshore view stops being scenery and starts being a place you can read.