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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 37, 2 January 1885, Page 13

When the British gunboat Wasp was lost with all save sis oa board she was making for Lough Foyle to take the sheriff aud bailiff jto lustrahull to evict the inhabitants. The total rental of this speck in the ocean is £ 18. It is a small island on the seaboard of Donegal, aud is well known as the scene of the wreck of the Ids some few years back, when the hardy islanders, at great risk of life and limb, succeeded in rescuing the passengers and crew of the-ill-fated steamer. The extreme length of the is.et is three miles and the breadth one and a half miles. It is distant from the mainland about nine miles, and of all the desolate specks of land it is the most uninviting. Sixteen families with the lighthouse-keeper make up the entire population. There is no arable land, aud th« surface of the ground is formed of rucks. Some of the tenants have never paid any rent, and others are from tea to fifteen years in arrears. A precaiious live.iuood is earned at fishing during the summer mouths, but, owing t > the stormy and dangerous nature of the coast in the winter, the islanders go to the mainland until the spring, as there is no fuel to be obtained on the islet. There is only landing place, and it requires skill and care to run into it in safety So the attempt to collect some 90dob. has cost the British navy thousands of pounds and fifty-two lives,