Shipwrecks, sea birds and whale spotting: exploring Ireland’s first marine park

A vast swathe of the rugged Kerry coast and its Atlantic isles is now a protected haven for wildlife, and the occasional Jedi knight

I’m crouching in a windowless stone cell, peering at a ball of fluff stuffed into a crack in the floor. The cell is a beehive hut, or clochán; 1,400 years ago, it offered sleeping quarters to monks. The fluff is a baby seabird – to be precise, the chick of a European storm petrel. As my eyes adjust, I make out the glint of a tiny eye. After dark, the parents will return with food. For now, the chick sits tight.

Storm petrels nest only on remote, uninhabited islands, so seeing a chick is a rare privilege. I give the bird its privacy and crawl back outside – gasping anew at my surroundings. I’m high on a vertiginous rock outcrop in the Atlantic, just south-west of Ireland’s south-west corner.