The Saltee Islands are an important sanctuary for seabirds, with puffins, gannets, guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, great black-backed gulls, kittiwakes and manx shearwaters all calling the Saltee Islands their home.

The Saltees are the best place to see Northern Gannets and other seabirds in Ireland.

How to get to these islands? The boat trip will start at Kilmore Quay Harbour. The boat journey to the Islands takes approximately twenty minutes across open sea. On arrival at the island, you will be fitted with a lifejacket and transferred to another smaller boat, then brought to shore. There is no pier or dock on the island. Be prepared to get your feet wet! Bring appropriate footwear.

The Island is then yours to explore for three and half hours. Your boat crew will give you a time to be back at the landing area for the return trip to Kilmore Quay.

Please call the ferry team the day in advance before you are planning to arrive there. As the weather may be unpredictable, it might not possible to land on the island so please plan this in advance.

I recommend you to combine this with the Puffin mission seen on another posting. When you arrived at the puffin spot walk all the way to the most Southern Part of the islands and you will find the gannets and other seabirds.