Inchbofin

Inchbofin is an island of 26.6 ha (66 acres) located in the eastern arm of Lough Ree, with Tang, County Westmeath the nearest village.

Saint Ríoch is said to have founded a Christian monastery on Inchbofin in AD 530.[1] The island's name is from the Irish Inis Bó Finne, meaning "Island of the white/fair cow", and so it is easily confused with Inishbofin, County Galway and Inishbofin, County Donegal, which have the same Irish name. The Latin calques Īnsula Vaccae Albae or Īnsula Vitulae Albae are also used on occasion.[2] The monastery was of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine.

The Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) said that of Inchbofin's 64 acres (26 ha), there were 27 acres (11 ha) suitable for arable use.[3] Griffith's Valuation (mid-19th century) mentions three families on the island: Skelly, Connell and Heffernan; the island was owned by Susan Galbraith. In the 1911 census, there were 13 people living on the island, of the same 3 families.[4]

In winter 2009, the Irish Air Corps sent a helicopter to the island to deliver cattle fodder for the last farmer on the island, John Connell, after Lough Ree froze solid.[5][6]

He was the last permanent resident of the island and died on 12 February 2018.[7]

The remains of two churches survive on Inchbofin. One (12th century) is at the north-eastern point of the island and has an irregular enclosure. It consists of a nave, transept and sacristy. To the north of the altar is a Romanesque window, and above a window is a carving of a bishop's head. The smaller church ruin to the south is from the 12th/13th centuries.[11]