In 2016 I wrote a blog post (a variation of which also appeared in the Irish Independent) about the most remote point on the island of Ireland. Turns out there is a patch of bog in Bangor Erris that is about 8km from the nearest road. While searching for it I checked the area around the island and established that the nearest inhabited building to the house on the island was 4.21km away, on the road down to Crovraghan (the nearest building – a stone barn – was 3.92km).
Yesterday I was searching on Google for the terms ‘remote’ and ‘Ireland’ and on the second page of search results I found this brilliant post by Dónal Casey – Most Remote Building in Ireland – Spatial Overlay. In it Dónal, who has a background in GIS (Geographic Information Systems – using software to analyse and visualise data), set out to identify the building that is the furthest from any other in the Republic of Ireland (there was no up-to-date information for NI). Crucially he chose to define a building as one that is weathertight i.e. with an intact roof.
Ultimately, he concluded that the lighthouse on Black Head in County Clare was the most remote building in the Republic, being 2.27km from the nearest building.
Unfortunately, the building data on which he based his calculations was incomplete, with two sections missing – one around Limerick and another around Dublin. So the Shannon Estuary wasn’t considered in his calculations, however, he did do a manual check and concluded:
“In the missing Limerick polygon, there were only two candidate areas that might contain the most remote building, one on Feenish and one on Inishtubbrid (neither of which was a greater distance to another building than the building identified at the end of this analysis).”
And fair enough, he is right, there isn’t any watertight buildings in that area.
However, as readers of this blog know, there will be one very soon (ish!). But it isn’t the only recently restored house on the islands, as another house has been finished recently on Horse Island, and it is now the nearest weathertight building to Low Island, meaning that when the roof on island house is finally finished it will be 2.62km from the nearest weathertight building, making it the most remote building (and house) in Ireland!
UPDATE
Given the unlikelihood of an offshore island having only a single building on it, I felt that I didn’t need to qualify the above, however, I have identified one instance of an offshore island with a single building on it that is over 3km from the nearest building and another possibility that is over 9km from the nearest building. However, there is an outbuilding beside it so that may disqualify it.
And there could well be others.