Displaying items by tag: Inis Mhic Oileáin
How German Airmen Crash Landed On Inis Mhic Oileáin - Maria Simonds-Gooding Recalls
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.
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.
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.
Inis Mhic Oileáin: One of Two Unique Places in the World - Artist Maria Simonds-Gooding
“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.
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.
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.
Hear her second episode below on Wavelengths.