Crane Island

Crane Island is a small wooded islet at the eastern edge of a bay in Garadice Lough, County Leitrim, where collapsed mortared walls and a circular tower mark a 17th-century rebel defence. Local tradition names Myles “The Slasher” O’Reilly, but the facts point more closely to Colonel Myles O’Reilly, a Cavan sheriff and instigator in the 1641 rebellion, who may have fortified the island after the Ulster defeat at Scarriffhollis in 1650. The guns never fired; Myles surrendered at Clogh Oughtar in 1653 and left for the Continent. Today the ruins sit half buried in grass and scrub, a quiet trap of wood, water and forgotten resistance.