Lambay Island
— — an island that keeps its own counsel.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest island off Ireland's east coast, four kilometres out from Howth. Privately held by the Baring family since 1904, with a small castle redrawn by Edwin Lutyens and a colony of wallabies that arrived from Whipsnade in the 1950s and never left. Puffins on the cliffs, grey seals on the shingle. Visitors arrive by invitation, in small numbers, on calm days.
Lambay Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Lambay sits about four kilometres off the Fingal coast north of Dublin, the largest island on Ireland's eastern seaboard at roughly 250 hectares. Knockbane, its high point, rises to 127 metres. The island has been continuously owned by the Baring family — descendants of the banker Cecil Baring, Lord Revelstoke — since they bought it in 1904. Edwin Lutyens redesigned the existing 15th-century fort into the present castle and walled garden between 1905 and 1912. There is no public ferry; access is granted only by arrangement with the estate, which keeps the island as a working farm and wildlife refuge.
Lambay is a Special Protection Area under EU Birds Directive listing, with one of Ireland's largest seabird colonies — guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and a puffin population on the eastern cliffs. Grey seals haul out on the shingle below the harbour. The most unusual residents are red-necked wallabies, descendants of a small group sent over from Dublin Zoo and Whipsnade in the 1950s and 1980s, now numbering perhaps 50. With no scheduled visitors most days and no cars on the island, the loudest sound is usually wind across the heather and the gannets working the channel.
There is no public ferry to Lambay. The estate runs a small number of curated day visits each season — typically guided walks under 30 people, departing from Malahide or Rogerstown on calm-weather days between April and September. Bookings open through the Lambay Estate site each spring and tend to fill within hours. The island also hosts private tastings of Lambay Irish Whiskey, a small-batch single malt distilled on the mainland and finished in casks stored on the island. No casual landings; the family asks that the foreshore be left to the seabirds.