Dunsy Island

Dunsy Island is a small island just off Ringhaddy on the western shore of the lough, near Islandmore and Pawle Island, in Strangford Lough, County Down, Northern Ireland.

Landscape

Strangford Lough, the largest sea inlet in the British Isles, is dotted with more than seventy islands and many smaller islets, known locally as pladdies. Most are drumlins, smooth, whale-backed hills of glacial clay left by the ice sheets of the last Ice Age and later drowned by the rising sea. Dunsy Island is one of these drumlin islands, a low, rounded island of grass and scrub surrounded at low tide by mud, sand and stony shore.

More about Dunsy Island

The waters around Ringhaddy, sheltered by these islands, have long been used as a safe anchorage for boats sailing the lough. The lough’s islands have a rich history: early Christian monks founded Nendrum on Mahee Island, the Vikings gave Strangford its name, from the Old Norse for “fjord of the strong current”, and Norman and Gaelic lords built tower houses such as Sketrick Castle along its shores.

The waters around Ringhaddy, sheltered by these islands, have long been used as a safe anchorage for boats sailing the lough.

Visiting

Dunsy Island is privately owned or uninhabited, and there is no public ferry. It can be seen from the shore roads and from boats and kayaks exploring the lough. The tides run fast and the mudflats around the islands can be soft, so take local advice before heading out on the water, and keep clear of seals and nesting birds. You can collect Dunsy Island as a sighting in your Island Passport.

Wildlife and area

The lough is a Marine Nature Reserve and one of the most important wildlife sites in Ireland. Common seals breed around its islands, and each winter around three quarters of the world’s pale-bellied brent geese gather on its mudflats, along with huge flocks of waders and wildfowl. In summer terns and gulls nest on the islands and pladdies.