Portmagee has always been a popular spot but in 2014 the village hit global headlines. The cast and crew of Star Wars arrived in the area to film scenes for ‘The Force Awakens’ in the suitably otherworldly setting of Skellig Michael. Hollywood stars such as Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill (none other than Luke Skywalker himself) rubbed shoulders with the locals and returned to the area again to film for ‘The Last Jedi’. While many may have watched the films and assumed it was some kind of blue-screen creation of a cinema writer’s imagination, others recognised the backdrop as Skellig Michael, the UNESCO World Heritage site just 12 kilometres off the Iveragh coast.

Since then, many fans of the franchise have flocked to Portmagee (or Porgmagee as it is briefly renamed on May the 4th each year), in honour of the puffin-inspired porg creatures of Star Wars. The boat trips to the islands are more popular than ever following their stardom, however, superb views of the Skelligs can be experienced all year round (weather permitting!) from various points along Iveragh’s beautiful coastal routes. Boat trips regularly go out from Portmagee but must be booked well in advance.

Seine boats are timber-built vessels synonymous with Iveragh’s coast, both in terms of fishing and racing. A seine holds 12 oarsmen and a coxswain who was responsible for steering and navigation. Annual rowing regattas draw huge crowds and fierce rivalry between regions, with the seine race the highlight for many.

Between 1920 and 1950, nine seine boats operated along the Iveragh coastline fishing for mackerel and herring – five of them were based in Portmagee. Up to 300 people were employed through this industry, from fishing to curing and boat repairs to coopering. Seine boats worked with a ‘follower’ boat and dropped their seine nets into the water at night. Weighed down by stones, the net would fall through the water and other stones were used to scare fish into the net. Great physical effort was needed to close the net around the shoal of fish before the catch was hauled onboard. You can learn more about the history of the seine boats and boat building on the Skellig Coast website here, or read an Irish Times article on seines here.

Breaking down a place name and translating it in sections is often the best approach to understanding the meaning of a name. Knock comes from ‘cnoc’ meaning a hill. Knockeen will have come from ‘cnocín’ – little hill. The ‘w’ in 'na waddra' might throw you off, but if we said it was from ‘an mhadra’ – the dog – you may see where the anglicised name came from. Put it all together and you have ‘little hill of the dog’.

Portmagee may be a bit more obvious, but who is the ‘Magee’ the port was named after? In the 18th century, Captain Theobald Magee was the chief smuggler of all things contraband around Iveragh. The small coastal settlement of mostly fishing families began to grow around this time and soon adopted the name of Port Magee.

On first glance, you might assume that Valentia Island was named after the Spanish port of Valencia, perhaps by visiting sailors. Valentia Island, however, is known as “Oileán Dairbhre” in Irish which translates to “the Island of the Oaks”, as it is said that the island used to be covered in oak trees. The English “Valentia” derives from the Irish words “Béal Inse”, meaning ‘the mouth or the estuary of the island’.

Maude Jane Delap was born in Donegal, but her family moved to Valentia Island in 1876 when she was just 8 years old. Here, on Valentia Island is where she lived until her death in 1953, at the age of 86. In a time where it was unusual for women to contribute to scientific research, Maude Delap became a self-taught marine biologist despite not having received a formal education. She made valuable insights into the life cycles of jellyfish and amassed an impressive collection of specimens, many of which are still kept in the Natural History Museum in Dublin.

Her most notable discovery was that of a rare Sea Anemone (a relative of jellyfish) that can only be found in the shallow waters of the Portmagee Channel. It was named in her honour - Edwardsia delapiae. From her home in Reenellen, Maude, accompanied by her sister Constance, would spend her life searching the seas around Valentia Island, regularly collecting samples and writing scientific articles in her own name – another rarity for the women of her generation.

Edwardsia delapiae is described as having a long worm-like body hidden in the sand, with its 16 tentacles spread in a 40mm ring above the sand. With these tentacles, the anemone catches passing prey items, which are passed to its mouth in the centre of the tentacle ring.

On some of the higher points of the trail you will gain beautiful views of the long finger-shaped hollow that runs along the Portmagee Channel. In part, it owes its form to the action of the glaciers that slowly swept across the region during the Quaternary Period. Throughout the Quaternary, starting from about 2.6 million years ago, these ice sheets continually advanced and retreated across the landscape. The most recent glacial maximum (period of maximum ice extent) occurred around 25,000 to 20,000 years ago.

During this maximum, huge ice sheets, up to 600m thick in places, ravaged Iveragh’s landscape, sculpting and carving the bedrock to form valleys and troughs. As glaciers flowed down from the mountains surrounding the Fertha Valley, sharp boulders and rocks embedded in the base of the glaciers scraped and eroded the underlying bedrock; through this action trough between Valentia Island and Portmagee was formed.

As these great ice sheets began to melt, about 14,500 years ago, vast quantities of meltwater gushed into the seas and caused a rapid rise in sea level. It was during this sea-level rise that water breached and flooded the glacially excavated trough, and the Portmagee Channel was formed.

Love them or hate them, Spiders (Domhán Alla) are part of the complex food chains that surround us in nature. We have over 1,000 species of arachnid in Ireland, 390 of which are native species. You may never encounter many of these species, as they are hidden in the undergrowth, high up in trees, or are too tiny to easily lay eyes on. A frosty autumnal morning reveals their spectacular architectural feats in all their glory. Complex structures drape from twig to twig, or gate to fencepost – something they seem to create at incredible speed and with mathematical accuracy. Others form webbed funnel shaped dwellings, all the more difficult for their prey to escape from. With patience and stealth, they feel for the slightest clue - such as vibrations on their silken creations - before launching at their hapless victim.

But the predator becomes prey on many occasions as spiders are on the menu for many. Birds (Éan), Bats (Ialtóg), Lizards (Laghairt), Frogs (Frog), Fish (Iasc) and even other spiders – everybody wants a spider snack! Without spiders controlling certain species and without spiders providing food for many other species, the imbalance would be disastrous. Like much of nature, everything has its place. Our eight-legged friends have earned their place too so next time you see one you will remember they are important links in a greater food web.