The Island Golf Club

Until 1973 the only way to reach The Island Golf Club was by ferry across the Malahide Estuary. Ten founder members — known as the Syndicate — negotiated a lease in 1890 and engaged a local farmer named Michael Horish to cut the original fairways with a scythe. For most of the club's history, the crossing was part of the ritual. When a causeway was finally built it connected the club to the mainland, but the peninsula remained as it was — bordered by the Irish Sea to the east, the Broadmeadow Estuary to the south, and the sea on the west. The sense of having arrived somewhere is still intact.

The dunes at The Island are among the highest on Ireland's east coast — more rugged and tumbling than nearby Portmarnock, with terrain that has more in common with the wild links of the southwest than the flat coastal strips most people associate with Dublin golf. Fred Hawtree rerouted the course in 1973 when a new clubhouse forced a complete redesign, Eddie Hackett made modifications in 1985, and Martin Hawtree refined it through the 1990s. The back nine plays out along the Broadmeadow Estuary, and the views from the 13th — looking across the tidal water toward Malahide marina — are unlike anything else on the east coast.

In 2019 The Island co-hosted The Amateur Championship with Portmarnock, putting it on the same stage as one of the great Irish links. Most international visitors drive straight past the Donabate turnoff without knowing it exists. The ones who stop tend to come back.