Dursey residents warn they may abandon island if cable car not fixed

If Ireland’s only island cable car is not quickly repaired, cattle on the Dursey face starvation and humans may abandon it for the first time in 420 years, locals have warned.

Martin Sheehan, a third-generation farmer on Dursey, delivered the stark warning this week after a delay in fixing the cable car put a question mark over the habitability of Ireland’s most south-westerly island.

The cable car, used to transport people, hay and animal feed and other items, traverses the Dursey Sound, which has strong tides and reefs. The aerial link has been shut for maintenance since March, forcing islanders to rely on a ferry service that is subject to weather conditions. It often does not run in winter.

The sheep can graze on hillsides and survive on their own, unlike the island’s 60 cows, who will start to calve in the new year, Sheehan told RTÉ. “They will be on their own and facing starvation – that’s the reality of the situation.”

Winter turned the ferry service into a “lottery”, given that there was “nothing in front of you but the bare Atlantic”, he said. “That’s the last lifeline we have, to have a chance of looking after our livestock and keep them surviving the winter.”

Dursey, four miles long and just over half a mile wide at the tip of the Beara peninsula, used to have three villages: Ballynagallagh, Kilmichael and Tilickafinna, and hundreds of inhabitants.

That has dwindled to about 15 people with holiday homes, five farmers who keep livestock on the island and just two full-time residents who are considering leaving because of the isolation.

“You couldn’t live in those conditions. Apart from the physical side of it, it’s not good for your mental state either. It would test your wellbeing to the limit,” said Sheehan, who chairs the island’s development association.

The last time Dursey was uninhabited is believed to be in 1602 after a massacre by English troops.

With nesting colonies of seabirds and the ruins of a Napoleonic signal tower, Dursey has been called a walkers’ paradise. “For most visitors the outstanding memory is how they got there: a 10-minute journey across open sea,” a Guardian travel article said in 2015.

The cable car, opened in 1969, is undergoing repairs to its towers. Cork county council had promised it would resume operating in November, then said early next year.

The council said in a statement that repairs were nearly complete and a date for restored services would be confirmed after all components were in place and the Commission for Railways Regulation gave authorisation. The Guardian has sought comment from Sheehan and the council.