Valentia Island

Valentia Island, called Dairbhre in Irish (meaning "oak isle"), is among the westernmost points of Ireland. It sits in Dingle Bay off the Iveragh Peninsula in southwest County Kerry. The Maurice O'Neill Memorial Bridge at Portmagee connects it to the mainland, and from April to October, a car ferry runs from Reenard Point to Knightstown, the island's main settlement. A smaller village, Chapeltown, lies about three kilometres (two miles) from the bridge near the island's midpoint. As of the 2022 CSO Census, the permanent population is 658. The island stretches roughly 11 kilometres (7 miles) long and nearly three kilometres (two miles) wide, making it the fifth-largest island off Ireland's coast.

The English name "Valentia" (or "Valencia") does not come from the Spanish city. It derives from the Irish name for Valentia Harbour, *cuan Bhéil Inse* ("harbour-mouth of the island"), which was anglicised as "Bealinche" and "Ballentia" before becoming "Valentia." Spanish sailors may have influenced the spelling; a grave marker for Spanish sailors lost at sea exists in the Catholic cemetery at Kylemore. The Irish name Dairbhre likely means "oak isle" and was historically anglicised as "Dariry."

Valentia served as the eastern terminus of the first commercially viable transatlantic telegraph cable. An initial attempt to land a cable at Ballycarbery Strand on the mainland in 1857 failed. After further failures at Knightstown in 1858 and Foilhommerum Bay in 1865, a successful cable from Foilhommerum Bay to Heart's Content, Newfoundland, began operation in 1866. Transatlantic telegraph cables operated from Valentia for a century, ending when Western Union International ceased cable operations in 1966.

Before the cable, American longitude measurements had an 850-metre (2,800 ft) uncertainty relative to European longitudes. To improve navigation accuracy, the United States Coast Survey mounted a longitude expedition in 1866. Benjamin Gould and A. T. Mosman reached Valentia on 2 October 1866 and built a temporary observatory beside the Foilhommerum Cable Station. After many rainy days, the first transatlantic longitude signals were exchanged between Foilhommerum and Heart's Content on 24 October 1866. The transatlantic cable is on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

On 21 May 1927, Charles Lindbergh made his first European landfall over Dingle Bay and Valentia Island during his solo flight from New York to Paris. His 1927 Mercator chart labelled it "Valencia." In 1992, Swiss geology student Iwan Stössel discovered fossilised tetrapod trackways—footprints preserved in Devonian rocks—on the north coast at Dohilla. About 385 million years ago, a primitive vertebrate left prints in damp sand near a river margin in what is now southwestern Ireland. These trackways are among the oldest signs of vertebrate life on land. On 14 March 2021, the island recorded Ireland's first walrus sighting.

The island's features and history make it a popular tourist destination, easily reached from the Ring of Kerry route. Geokaun Mountain, the highest point, and the Fogher Cliffs, rising 180 metres (600 ft) on its northern face, are notable landmarks. On the northeast, Glanleam House sits amid subtropical gardens. Starting in the 1830s, Sir Peter George Fitzgerald, the 19th Knight of Kerry, planted these gardens with rare plants from the southern hemisphere, protected from Atlantic gales and frost. The gardens feature plants from South America, Australia, New Zealand (including Europe's tallest tree ferns), Chile, and Japan, and are open to the public. The slate quarry, reopened in 1998, supplied slates for the British Houses of Parliament. A heritage centre covers the island's geology, history, and industry, with exhibits on the Cable Station, Marine Radio Station, and RNLI lifeboat station. The Telegraph Field (or Longitude Field) marks the site of the first permanent communications link between Europe and North America. Just off the east end, Beginish Island holds remnants of a small farming community, with two houses dated to the 12th century. On Cromwell's Point in the northeast, the active Cromwell Point Lighthouse (also called Valentia Lighthouse) stands.

Valentia Island has an oceanic climate (Cfb). Sitting on the eastern edge of the Atlantic, it is, on average, the wettest weather station in Ireland. Despite being on the same latitude as St. Anthony, Newfoundland, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, it enjoys mild temperatures.