Excerpt from irishtimes.com
When Beatle John Lennon purchased the tiny island of Dorinish in Clew Bay, Co Mayo, in 1967, he commissioned Paddy Quinn, from the nearby island of Inishcuttle, to build a raft to transport a gypsy caravan to it. Quinn has often mused about the fact that he hadn’t a clue who Lennon was initially and other than a very polite conversation over tea, the only drama was when his dog, Sandy, mistook the Beatle’s long, hairy Afghan coat for some exotic intruder and began to growl.
The 2016 Census of Irish islands states that Inishcuttle no longer has a resident population. To add insult to injury, Wikipedia defines it as “uninhabited”. That is not true, confirms Ann Quinn, who says herself, Paddy and their daughter are very much alive, always return their census forms and are happily picking raspberries in their polytunnel on the island.
The most recent available figures state there were 2,879 people living on the 27 main offshore islands for Census 2011 and 2,734 for Census 2016. That is a relatively small overall decrease of 145, with some islands showing an increase. However, as many islanders attest, measuring island numbers fundamentally depends on the day of the week, the weather and the season.
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