The very existence of a formal dwelling of medieval date on so exposed an island is quietly remarkable. The Inishkeas sit several kilometres off the Mullet Peninsula, subject to the full force of the North Atlantic, and the idea of someone not merely sheltering there but building in a manner recognisable to archaeologists as a house, a permanent domestic structure, suggests a more organised and enduring inhabitation than the islands' current uninhabited state might lead you to expect.