North Bull Island

To find out more on the seaweeds that can be seen on North Bull Island’s seaweeds, check out our poster:

Some parks with a large number of gates will start to close half an hour before the above times to allow enough time for all gates to be closed at the designated hour.

History

Bull Island is man-made. It was created 200 years ago when the North Bull Wall was constructed. It continues to grow seaward, a rare natural occurrence in Ireland. It is now 5 km in length and 1 km wide; and covers an area nearly 15 km² in size, including both land and seashore.

In the 1930's Bull Island became the country's first official bird sanctuary and in 1981 it achieved UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status.

The causeway to the Island was built in 1962 to 1964 as more people started arriving by car. Earlier, the Howth Tram used to bring Dubliners to Dollymount Strand Beach.

Nature

North Bull Island is nestled along the northern edge of Dublin Bay. It is a low-lying sandy spit, with Dollymount Strand on the seaward side of the island, and salt marsh fringing its mainland side. Between the island and the mainland are intertidal mud and sandflats. An extraordinary wealth of wildlife live, breed and eat on Bull Island. The island is home at various times of the year to 8,000 wild fowl and 26,000 waders, 180 different bird species and 300 species of plants.

The island supports nine habitats and a range of species protected under the EU Habitats Directive, including petalwort (a species of liverwort), marsh fritillary butterfly, harbour and grey seals, and at least three species of bat, including common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, and leisler’s. The island also supports three moss species, bryum intermedium, bryum uliginosum, and bryum warneum and one species of plant, lesser centaury, which are legally-protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Service Flora Protection Order.

A range of wildfowl and wading birds protected under the EU Birds Directive spend the winter on North Bull Island, these birds migrate to the island every year from as far away as Canada and Africa. Three species regularly occur in numbers that are considered internationally important: light-bellied brent goose, black-tailed godwit and bar-tailed godwit. Fourteen other species regularly occur in nationally important numbers: shelduck, teal, pintail, shoveler, oystercatcher, grey plover, golden plover, knot, sanderling, dunlin, curlew, redshank, turnstone and black-headed gull. The island also supports significant numbers of birds during the summer.