Amberjack Bay
"Amberjack Bay, Amberjack Bay. Life is sweet, come what may"
Amberjack Bay is a place full of songs, stories, myths and superstitions. There's spooky fairy tales about the hag in the woods, about the ghost child, or about the fairy lights that make you lose your way. There's songs about picking bruberries, and rhymes to warn children to be safe and not get into an accident. There's legends about mysterious places like the witch's hut that seems to be there one day and gone the next. And there's superstitions to follow if you want to keep bad luck away. Once, these songs and stories were teaching tools passed on to impart lessons to the younger generation. These days though, they're slowly being neglected and forgotten.
Amberjack Bay is an island off the southwest coast of Ireland in Kerry County. It is accessible via a weekly ferry service or private boat. Most of the island's population of around 400 lives in the fishing village of Durnatel. The hilly island is heavily forested and not much outside the village is accessible by roads.
The high tech revolution has been slow to arrive to Durnatel. There's no cell service, or cable tv, although sometimes in good weather you can catch one of the networks from Tralee. Only the school, the library, and a few other places have access to the Internet. And who needs a car when you can get across the entire town in 5 minutes on a bicycle?
Despite its lack of high tech advancement though, change and progress have slowly altered Durnatel in recent decades. The grandparents sometimes grumble that the old traditions are being forgotten. Nobody visits the spirit shrines anymore, or tells the old stories, and it gets harder to find a good burberry harvest each year.