During the Second World War, Kerry was the location for a number of both Allied forces and German air crashes, but one less well-known one occurred on the Blasket Island of Inis Mhic Oileáin (Inishvickillaune) on November 25th, 1940.

Wreckage from the BV 138 flying boat, which crashed with five Germans on board, was spotted on the island by artist Maria Simonds Gooding during her first visit there in 1968 – some time before the “inis” was bought by taoiseach Charles Haughey – and she took a propeller home afterwards.

Capt  Paul Colleran and Colonel Paul Fry of the Air Corps holding the propellor blade from the German flying boat, along with Maria Simonds-Gooding who found it on Inis Mhic Oileáin

By pure coincidence, she not only met one of the surviving pilots and his colleague some years later but also heard of his epic rescue by one of the Blasket Islanders. She also heard how the Germans shot one sheep after they had crash-landed on Inis Mhic Oileáin, and pinned its fleece to the door of one of the island cottages as a mark of thanks.

Standing with the German pilots outside Kruger’s pub, Dún Chaoin, Co Kerry in July 1982 are (left to right), Hans Beigel (engineer) Tomás Ó Dálaigh, or known as Tom an Oileáin, who was telling the pilot how he saved his life, after recognises him 42 years later, Bridie Fitzgerald, Willi Krupp (pilot), Maria Simonds-Gooding and late journalist Stan Gebler-Davies Photo: Maria Simonds Gooding

Outside Maria Simonds-Gooding’s cottage at Ceathrú, Dún Chaoin on the same day in July 1982 are Maria Simonds-Gooding,  Willi Krupp (German pilot)  with propellor blade, Hans Beigel (engineer) and Bridie Fitzgerald

In 2005, the propeller she retrieved was presented to Col. Paul Fry of the Air Corps, as she recalls in her interview for Wavelengths below.

“There are two places in the world that create a sort of a spark within one that is so unique…and one of those is Inis Mhic Oileáin..”

That’s how award-winning artist Maria Simonds-Gooding feels about the Kerry island, one of the Blaskets, which she camped out on some time before it was acquired by former taoiseach Charles J Haughey.

In her second of a series of occasional interviews with Wavelengths for Afloat, Simonds-Gooding recounts that first visit with her cousin, armed with a six-shilling bottle of Kruger’s port.

She describes how they trapped rabbits humanely and survived on very little water until a visiting yacht – with a starked naked lone sailor – left them supplies.

Etchings of Inis Mhic Oileáin by Maria Simonds-Gooding

She also recalls an experience with an angry black calf that convinced her the island may have been haunted.

“I’d love to have some of those paintings that I did on Inis Mhic Oileáin, if there’s anybody listening to this and you have one,” she says.

Maria Simonds-Gooding's recent book on the work of An File, published by Lilliput Press

Simonds-Gooding is the author of the recently published Lilliput Press book on Blasket Island painter Micheál O Gaoithín, which was the subject of her first Wavelengths interview.

Artist Maria Simonds Gooding with An File - Blasket islander Micheál O Gaoithín

Hear her second episode below on Wavelengths.