When the boats run

Taken from the operator’s own two timetable sheets, one per direction, as published on its site. Two caveats worth knowing. The sheets carry no season dates at all — this is a day-of-the-week timetable, not a summer and winter one, and the early sailings exist for islanders going to work rather than for visitors. And the version of the service registered with the National Transport Authority for the current period lists a noticeably different pattern out of Baltimore: 07:45, 09:00, 10:30, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 16:45, 17:45, 19:00 and 20:30. The 10:30, 12:00 and 14:00 sailings appear in both, so treat those as solid and check the rest. The operator runs a text service for exactly this reason: send the name of the day to 085 88 77 422 from an Irish mobile and it replies with that day’s times.

Ticket prices

Sherkin Island Ferry publishes return prices only — its price list has no single-fare column, so a one-way hop is not something you can look up in advance. The service is cash only: no card machine, no online booking, no ticket app. The nearest cash machines are in Skibbereen, eleven kilometres back up the road, and there is none on the island. The Free Travel Pass is accepted free of charge for the pass-holder, which reflects the route’s status as a licensed public service registered with the National Transport Authority rather than a private tour boat.

Route map

Across the mouth of Baltimore Harbour to Harbour Mouth on Sherkin’s north-east shore, at the eastern edge of Roaringwater Bay.

Planning a day visit

Comfortably, and with more time ashore than most Irish island trips allow. On a weekday the 10:30 out and 18:00 back gives you seven and a half hours on Sherkin; the 09:30 out and 15:30 back gives six. Sunday narrows the choice to five sailings each way, and there 10:30 out with 18:00 back is the obvious pairing.

It works without a car too. The Local Link 266 reaches Baltimore Pier at 09:31, an hour before the 10:30 boat, and the 13:46 arrival catches the 14:00 crossing if you are prepared to walk briskly the forty metres from bus door to gangway. Coming back is tighter. The 18:00 from Sherkin lands you at about 18:10 and the 18:15 bus to Skibbereen goes from the pier. Workable. The 20:15 is the one to aim for if you would rather not run.

Half a day covers the friary, the castle and the pub. A full day is what you need to walk out to Silver Strand and back. There is no shop either way, so anything you want to eat on the beach travels with you.

Vehicles on board

Bicycles cross for €3 return, and on a five-kilometre island with no bus on it they are the sensible option.

Cars are the surprise. Cape Clear next door allows only residents to bring a vehicle over, whereas Sherkin will carry your car, caravan or camper van by arrangement on the ferry Yoker Swan. The West Cork Islands tourism body words it as “car transport available upon arrangement”, and the operator says the same. This is not a drive-on service and it is not on the timetable. You phone ahead.

The reason it is possible at all is the boat’s past life. McCrindle of Ardrossan built the Yoker Swan in 1984 for Strathclyde’s Renfrew–Yoker crossing on the Clyde, bow-ramped and able to take about three cars, and it came to Ireland after that ferry closed in 2010, by way of Donegal, where its sister Renfrew Rose worked the Burtonport–Arranmore route. Heavy freight, building materials and farm machinery go separately, on the roll-on cargo vessel Sabrina II.

Dogs appear to be welcome on a lead, and no dog fare is published. We could not open the operator’s FAQ to confirm it and read it only through a search index, because the site sits behind a bot check. Phone before you rely on it.

Practical notes

Weather and cancellations

Both of the operator’s timetable sheets end with the same line in the footer: “All sailings subject to weather and other conditions!”, exclamation mark included. Ten minutes inside the shelter of Baltimore Harbour is about as protected as an Irish island crossing gets, and the service runs year-round, but a hard southerly funnelling into the harbour mouth will still stop it.

Nothing is pre-booked, so there is no cancellation email and no refund process. You find out at the pier, or by ringing the ferry on 087 911 7377. If you are staying on the island, budget for the possibility of an extra night.

What you are sailing to

Begin with what is not there. The Irish Times reported in May 2026 that Sherkin has no shop, no post office and no primary school — so you bring what you need with you, or you go without it for the day. The island’s only hotel, the Islander’s Rest, has been closed to guests since 2022, when fifty Ukrainian refugees arrived unannounced and were housed in it, taking the population to around 160 overnight.

The 2022 census counted 110 residents on an island about five kilometres long and two and a half wide, roughly 5 km²: almost exactly the 111 of 2016, and a long way down from the 1,131 of 1841. What is left is thin on services and long on coastline. The Jolly Roger is the pub, about a twenty-minute uphill walk from the pier. Sherkin House does food and drink near the west end of the harbour road. Bicycles can be hired on the island. That is the commercial life of Sherkin.

Two ruins do most of the work, and one raid accounts for both. The Franciscan friary, built around 1460, stands above Abbey strand near the pier. Dún na Long, the Fort of Ships, sits ivy-clad directly above the landing and was the O’Driscoll clan’s stronghold. In 1537 the citizens of Waterford sailed down to settle a shipping dispute with the O’Driscolls and wrecked the pair of them. There are still plenty of O’Driscolls on the island, and on the ferry crew.

Four beaches, sand and rock, face south and west. Silver Strand and Cow Strand sit on the south-west shore; Trá Bán (White Strand) lies further south again; rocky Hard Strand is near Sherkin Point. Nearer the ferry, Abbey Pier and Horseshoe Harbour are the usual swimming spots.

One thing not to plan around: the Sherkin Island Marine Station. Matt and Eileen Murphy founded it in 1975 and it became known internationally for four decades of baseline marine surveys and for the journal Sherkin Comment, but the family wound the research programme up in 2015 and it has run no projects since. Matt Murphy died in March 2025. It is not a visitor attraction. What survives is the archive and the website, not an open door.

Continuing your journey

• There is no public transport of any kind on Sherkin. No bus, no taxi rank. Everything is walked, cycled, or driven by a resident.
• Bicycle hire is available on the island, and signposted walking routes run out from the pier towards the beaches.
• By boat, Sherkin is a dead end. Cape Clear Ferries does not call there, so island-hopping means going back to Baltimore first. Both services use the same pier, which is what makes a two-island day possible; the times are on our page for the Baltimore to Cape Clear ferry.
• Back on the mainland, Local Link 266 from Baltimore Pier connects at Skibbereen for Cork, Bantry, Clonakilty and Killarney.

Getting to the pier

Everything to do with the ferry happens within about eighty metres of the water. Baltimore is a single square of a village wrapped around its harbour, and that is the whole of it.

• Where it leaves from: the pier on the west side of the harbour, the same stone quay Cape Clear Ferries works off. Different company, different boat, different ticketing. Do not queue at the Cape Clear booth for a Sherkin ticket.
• Parking is free. There is no pay-and-display anywhere in Baltimore. Cape Clear Ferries, which sends far more passengers off the same pier, advises allowing at least thirty minutes to find a space in high season. The pier car park fills first; the overflow is the waterfront road on the north side of the harbour.
• By bus: one route serves Baltimore now, TFI Local Link route 266, and it stops at Baltimore Pier itself, roughly forty metres from where the ferry ties up. No walk with luggage. Vehicles are wheelchair accessible, cash and Leap Card are both taken, and Free Travel Pass holders and under-fives travel free. Older listings, Baltimore’s own visitor page among them, still show a Bus Éireann 251 to the village; no such route exists.
• From Skibbereen the 266 leaves Market Street at 07:38, 09:14, 11:33, 13:29, 16:03, 17:19, 19:33 and 21:14, reaching Baltimore Pier at 07:55, 09:31, 11:50, 13:46, 16:20, 17:36, 19:50 and 21:31. That is about seventeen minutes. Back the other way it leaves the pier at 06:30 (Monday to Saturday only), 08:20, 10:00, 12:30, 14:30, 16:30, 18:15, 20:15 and 21:35.
• From Cork city there is no through bus. You get as far as Skibbereen on Bus Éireann route 237 (Cork–Skibbereen–Goleen) or 252, or on West Cork Connect, and change there for the 266. The city end of the journey is covered on our page on buses in Cork.
• Distances: Skibbereen is 11 km (7 miles) away and Cork city 100 km (60 miles), according to Baltimore’s own visitor site.

Booking

There is nothing to book. Sherkin Island Ferry has no online booking engine, no reservation system and no card machine; the price list simply says “Cash Only”. Turn up at the pier with the fare in coins and notes and get on. Nor are there seasonal fare bands: the same €15 adult return applies in February and in August.

Two things to do before you set off. Draw cash out in Skibbereen. Then text the operator for the day’s times, which is as close to a confirmation as this route gets. Vehicle crossings are the one exception and do need a phone call.

Accessibility

Sherkin Island Ferry publishes no accessibility information whatsoever. Its price list and its two timetable sheets are the entirety of what the operator puts in writing, and neither mentions step-free boarding, wheelchair spaces or assistance. Its main website sat behind a bot-verification screen throughout our checks in July 2026. The absence is the finding here, not an oversight on our part — there is nothing to quote.

Here is what can be stated. Boarding at Baltimore is off the same stone pier used by Cape Clear Ferries, and Cape Clear describes boarding there as via steps, with assistance that “may be limited depending on conditions and operational demands”. The landing at Harbour Mouth on Sherkin is a working pier, not a terminal. The bus leg is the accessible part: TFI Local Link states that route 266 vehicles are wheelchair accessible. If you need assistance, ring the ferry on 087 911 7377 before you travel. There is no other channel.

Good to know before you sail