Valentia Island
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Valentia Island (Oilean Dairbhre in Irish), is one of Europe's westernmost inhabited locations, lying off the Iveragh Peninsula in the southwest of County Kerry in the Republic of Ireland. It is linked to the mainland by a bridge at Portmagee, as well as by a ferry which sails from Reenard Point to Knightstown, the island's main settlement. The permanent population of the island is 650, and the island is approximately 11 km long by 3 km wide.
Valentia was the eastern terminal of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, laid in 1857 and operated until 1966.
On the northwest of the island stands modest Glanleam House amid its famous sub-tropical gardens; protected by shelterbelts from Atlantic gales and never touched by frost, these gardens provide the mildest microclimate in Ireland. Starting in the 1830s, Sir Peter George Fitzgerald, the 19th Knight of Kerry (1808 – 1880) [link], planted these gardens and stocked them with a unique collection of rare and tender plants from the southern hemisphere, normally grown under glass in the British Isles. The gardens are laid out in a naturalistic style as a series of walks. There are plants from South America, Australia, New Zealand (the tallest tree ferns in Europe) Chile and Japan. The gardens are memorialized in a selected golden-variegated Luma apiculata "Glanleam Gold" that originated as a sport in the garden. The gardens are open to the public.
Attractions on the island also include a grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary, in a recently reopened slate quarry that provided slates for the UK's Houses of Parliament. There is also a fascinating Heritage Centre which tells the story of the Geology, Human, Natural and Industrial History of the island, with exhibits on the Cable Station, the Marine Radio Station and the RNLI Lifeboat.
Valentia is the site of two lighthouses maintained by the Commissioners of Irish Lights and home to a Severn class lifeboat. Originally sited on the island, the [Valentia Weather Station], one of twelve coastal weather stations whose reports form part of the BBC Shipping Forecast, is now sited on the mainland on the outskirts of Cahersiveen. Due to the prevailing winds in Ireland being from the south-west, the area, which is mountainous, experiences 1430mm of rain each year, one of the highest rainfall levels in Ireland, more than twice the levels of Dublin on the east coast.[link] Climate information for Valentia can be found at [the Met Eireann web site].
In 1993, an undergraduate geology student discovered fossilised tetrapod trackways, footprints in mud preserved in Devonian rocks on a rock platform on the very coast. About 385 mya, a primitive vertebrate passed along a muddy shoreline in the equatorial swampland that is now southeastern Ireland and left prints as if in wet concrete. The prints were preserved by silt overlying them, and were converted to rock over the ages. The Valentia Island trackways are among the oldest signs of vertebrate life on land and have been studied by paleontologist Jennifer A. Clack
The combined features and history of the island make it an attractive tourist destination, easily accessible from the popular Ring of Kerry route.
Viscount Valentia is the courtesy title in the British peerage of the Earl of Mountnorris; and references to Valentia appear in the Earl's former lands in Worcestershire, England.
Valentia is the home of former GAA footballer, Mick O'Connell and the birthplace of John J "Scéilig" O'Kelly, the Sinn Fein politician. It is also considered home to Mug Ruith, a powerful blind druid in Irish mythology.
External links
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