Portmagee

Portmagee An Caladh
—  Town  —
Portmagee Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 51°53′08″N 10°21′58″W
Country	Ireland
Province	Munster
County	County Kerry
Time zone	WET (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	IST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Irish Grid Reference	V370730

Portmagee.

Portmagee (Irish: An Caladh) is a village in County Kerry, Ireland. The village is located on the west coast of Ireland, on Kerry's Iveragh peninsula south of Valentia Island. The name in Irish means 'the ferry', referring to its purpose as a crossing point to the island. Access to Valentia Island is now via a bridge from Portmagee.

The English name Portmagee (or Magee's Port as it was formerly known) comes from Captain Theobald Magee, a notorious 18th Century smuggler. Having served in the army of King James as an officer, Magee 'retired' to a life of merchant shipping between France, Portugal and Ireland. Thanks to the intricately chisled coast around the South West, his trade in contraband spirits, textiles and tea and tobacco was extremely hard to police and therefore extremely profitable. He married Mrs. Bridget Morgell, the widow of a rich Dingle merchant and also the daughter of the then MP for County Kerry, Mr. Thomas Crosby. Being related to the best smuggler in Ireland can't have sat too easily on Crosby's shoulders and there is some suspicion that Magee's death in a Lisbon monastery was due to some exile imposed by the powerful MP. However, his wife, and his sons continued the family business of smuggling.

The village also serves as a departure point for tourists travelling to visit 'Skellig Michael', an island off the coast featuring a 6th century monastic settlement. Skellig Michael (from Sceilig Mhichíl in the Irish language, meaning Michael's rock), also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean about 9 miles (14.5 kilometres) from the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. After probably being founded in the 7th century, for 600 years the island was a centre of monastic life for Irish Christian monks. The Gaelic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 230-metre-high rock became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is one of Europe's better known but least accessible monasteries. Since the extreme remoteness of Skellig Michael has until recently discouraged visitors, the site is exceptionally well preserved. The very spartan conditions inside the monastery illustrate the ascetic lifestyle practiced by early Irish Christians. The monks lived in stone 'beehive' huts (clochans), perched above nearly vertical cliff walls.

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland

External links

• Portmagee Hostel
• Portmagee Info and Map
• The Waterfront
• The Skelligs
• The Moorings
• Poem about Portmagee