Yahoo Movies This deserted island could be yours for £1.1m
A deserted island that was once home to iron age settlers and medieval monks has gone on sale with an asking price of €1.25m (£1.1m).
High Island – or Ardoilean – spans 80 acres and lies in the Atlantic two miles off the coast of Galway, Ireland.
It has a history of settlement dating back 3,000 years but is currently only home to to monastery ruins and thousands of birds.
However, the auctioneer who put the island on sale last Friday has suggested it could make a perfect home for a buyer with their own helicopter.
Luke Spencer, of Spencer Auctioneers in Oughterard, told the BBC: “It’s lovely, a beautiful place. A lot of birds and grasses and ferns. You’ve got Atlantic views all the way around.” He suggested buyers could secure planning permission to build a “unique home” on the island, as long as the design is “sympathetic” to it’s location.
The likeliest buyers are the Irish state or a wealthy person such as a Russian oligarch or technology tycoon, Spencer told the BBC.
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“Someone from Google, or [Mark] Zuckerberg,” he said.
Star Wars fans may wish they could scoop up the property as it lies just 200 miles north of the Skellig Islands, which served as Luke Skywalker’s sanctuary in the lastest trilogy.
The island is also an EU Special Protection Area under the European Union directive on the conservation of wild birds. Gulls, shearwaters, oystercatchers, peregrine falcons, petrels, Arctic terns, Manx, fulmars and barnacle geese all inhabit the island, which is as big as 60 football pitches.
As an EU state, Ireland is bound by the directive to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certain birds under threat.
Pollen evidence suggests the island has a history of inhabitance dating back 3,000 years.
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Archaeologists believe seventh century Irish saint Saint Fechin founded the monastery before he died of yellow fever in 665.
The ruins can still be found on the island, including a church, altar, beehive huts and graves. The ruins are owned by the Irish state and excluded from the sale.
An Irish family called the Martins owned the island in the 18th century, and a poet named Richard Murphy owned it from 1969 to 1998.
