The Saltee Islands are an important sanctuary for seabirds, with puffins, gannets, guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, great black-backed gulls, kittiwakes and manx shearwaters all calling the Saltee Islands their home.

The Saltees are the best place to see Puffins in Ireland from approximately end of April until mid August every year. The rest of the year the Puffins spend on the open ocean in the Atlantic so the chances that you will spot them at another time of the year are fairly low.

How to get to these islands? The boat trip will start at Kilmore Quay Harbour. The boat journey to the Islands takes approximately twenty minutes across open sea. On arrival at the island, you will be fitted with a lifejacket and transferred to another smaller boat, then brought to shore. There is no pier or dock on the island. Be prepared to get your feet wet! Bring appropriate footwear.

The Island is then yours to explore for three and half hours. Your boat crew will give you a time to be back at the landing area for the return trip to Kilmore Quay.

The puffins are around a 10-minute walk away from the landing area and you can get super close to them. I highly recommend you to bring your tele lense, but you can absolutely get good photos and videos even with a phone camera.

Please call the ferry team the day in advance before you are planning to arrive there. As the weather may be unpredictable, it might not possible to land on the island so please plan this in advance.