It contains a portion of a round tower, built of undressed boulders of red granite. It was never more than about forty feet in height, is seventeen feet two inches in diameter, and the walls at the base are four feet three inches thick; the doorway is five and a half feet high and is eight feet from the ground. There are also ruins of two churches (a monastery having been founded here by St. Columba), and a peculiar tau-cross. On the northwest end of the island is a fine light-house, illumined by gas, and it has also a fog-siren and a group-flashing light; it stands a hundred and thirty feet above high-water. Near it is the new signal station of Lloyd's, which is in telegraphic communication with Dunfanaghy. There are a chapel, school-house, and post-office also on the island. The rock scenery of the northeast coast is very fine and characteristic; the southwest coast is low and flat, and fringed with treacherous rocks. It was here that the gunboat _Wasp_ was wrecked on the 22d of September, 1884, and all its crew except six drowned. Fishing is the chief industry, and the islanders are good fishermen, pursuing their avocation now chiefly in Norway yawls instead of "curraghs." The Congested Districts Board have aided the inhabitants by supplying these vessels, the cost to be repaid by small instalments, also in building a curing station and teaching the people how to cure fish. Quantities of lobsters and crabs are caught, and a Sligo steamer calls once a week for fish. There is a lack of fuel, which has to be supplied from the main-land. The inhabitants have paid no rents since the loss of the _Wasp_, which was sent to enforce payment or evict the tenants. St. Columba, the patron saint of the place, is reported to have landed here in a curragh.
From Fallcarragh you get a fine view of Muckish, with its twenty-two hundred feet of altitude. While not the highest mountain in the Donegal highlands, Muckish is longer and of greater bulk than any of its rivals, and is also more imposing. Its name in Irish means "a pig's back," which it very much resembles. Here is Ballyconnell House, seat of Wybrants Olphert, Esq., where the "Plan of Campaign" was originated, so well known in connection with the landlord and tenant troubles in Ireland.