Last person to live on The Saltees

May 1976

Mr Claude Francis, Rathfarney, Piercestown, who died in the Co. Hospital, Wexford, on Monday, was the last person to have lived on the Saltee Islands. He bought the Great Saltee in 1939 and farmed it with considerable success for four years.

Mr Francis had a bungalow built on the island and went to live there after his marriage to Miss May Sutton from Kilmore Quay. In the current issue of the Kilmore Parish Journal, he is quoted as saying the four years they spent on the Saltees were the happiest years of his life, and it was the best farm of land that anyone ever set foot on.

Mr Francis left the island when his wife became ill and sold it to current owner, ‘Prince Neale’.