Lambay Island - Best location in Dublin?

Cienciano

It's far enough out, has a fresh water supply, good few houses and shelters, has a castle with a high wall built around it, good supply of seabirds/wallabies to eat, obviously fish, cattle.
Only problem is other people with the same idea

Kess73

There is a breeding population of deer there also.


Not the easiest island to get to either for anyone inexperienced on water.


If a small to medium sized group were able to land and set up some defences against the living, then it would have the potential to be a medium to long term location.

ScumLord

Looks good, I'd say you'd have a problem with zombies from Dublin washing up on your shores every so often, but it seems to have everything a small group would need making it worth the effort.

Kromdar

aside from the farm there is a small wind turbine, and [im guessing] radio facilities, amongst other things. wiki says the waters around the island are quite deep, if that's any help to the problems of zombies washing up.
Edit: on the issue of other people getting over there, it would be a bonus. the island is large enough, has plenty of buildings/outbuildings to live in, and the farms would need a certain amount of people there to run it.

bilbot79

Isn't it privately owned?

ScumLord

Kromdar wrote: »

Edit: on the issue of other people getting over there, it would be a bonus. the island is large enough, has plenty of buildings/outbuildings to live in, and the farms would need a certain amount of people there to run it.

It all depends on what kind of people they are and how many show up. If you have a group of 20 people and a group of 70 show up you could find your control usurped by people that will hurt the groups survival chances. If another 200 people show up you'll have over crowding and the chance of disease increases.

bilbot79 wrote: »

Isn't it privately owned?

That won't matter in the apocalypse.

Kess73

ScumLord wrote: »

Looks good, I'd say you'd have a problem with zombies from Dublin washing up on your shores every so often, but it seems to have everything a small group would need making it worth the effort.

The waters around the island are mostly very deep, and quite a lot of the island is surrounded by sheer climbs. The prevailing currents out there would mean that not an awful lot would get washed up on the parts of the shore line that are low laying.

Is also a very easy island to prang a boat on some rocks when approaching it, so has a degree of natural defences against both the living and the dead.


There are a few islands off the West Cork coast line that would be similar (ish) in size, and that would be just as potentially awkward for inexperienced boat users to land on. Like Lambay Island, they would be islands surrounded by very deep waters, and have natural fresh water springs on them along with a wildlife population.

Have been diving near some of the West Cork islands on a semi regular basis, and the underwater view gives a very good understanding as to why a lot of that type of island would not be forgiving to boat users lacking in local knowledge.

Kess73

ScumLord wrote: »

It all depends on what kind of people they are and how many show up. If you have a group of 20 people and a group of 70 show up you could find your control usurped by people that will hurt the groups survival chances. If another 200 people show up you'll have over crowding and the chance of disease increases.

That won't matter in the apocalypse.

But a group of 20 would potentially be able to see off a much greater number given that landing points are both limited and narrow on Lambay Island. The Island is an elevated one so there would be good 360 degree views from it, and it would be madness to try and approach it at night unless it was a trip that you had made by boat many times in the past.

Plus the greater the number that tries to travel over, the larger a craft they need and I would not like to be gambling on avoiding any submerged natural "surprises".

An small to medium sized organised group, with some weapons (improvised or actual) and tools, could easily hold an island that has a lay out like Lambay imho.

Cienciano

The only problem with Lambay is that it's off the coast of the biggest population centre in the country. A similar island off the coast of a rural area would be better. But I want to minimize time travelled across land.

Kess73

Cienciano wrote: »

The only problem with Lambay is that it's off the coast of the biggest population centre in the country. A similar island off the coast of a rural area would be better. But I want to minimize time travelled across land.

Well if it was the closest island to where a group were based at the time of an outbreak, then I could see it being ideal as that group could get there and be set up before others even make a try to get there.

Would not be much good for those of us further down the country, but a very good bug out location for those on the east side of Dublin.


But you best be hoping that any outbreak is closer to those from the lore of Romero and Brooks than that of say Brian Keene's Dead Sea :P

Cienciano

I reckon any dead flesh in the sea would be eaten by fish and crabs.

ScumLord

Cienciano wrote: »

I reckon any dead flesh in the sea would be eaten by fish and crabs.

According to Brooks the zombie disease is fatal to all other life including bacteria, which is what stops the decomposition of the zombie flesh. Although there's some pretty hardcore creatures in the ocean so if there is anything on earth that could eat zombie flesh it would more than likely be in the sea.

Even without decomposition the zombie would get torn apart in any ocean, dragged all over the ocean floor getting ripped apart on rocks.

Cienciano

I'd rather fatal than turning other animals into zombies. Imagine zombie crabs coming up the beach. Could seriously infect the food supply too. Zombie wallabys attacking you on the island

Kess73

Cienciano wrote: »

I'd rather fatal than turning other animals into zombies. Imagine zombie crabs coming up the beach. Could seriously infect the food supply too. Zombie wallabys attacking you on the island

Yeah the virus in Brian Keene's Dead Sea universe (and in a few of his short stories) is a nasty one that over time can mutate enough to cross between different species.

Hamelin's Revenge or the Hamelin virus can infect more than just humans, and took time before it was even able to infect humans.

There was a certain degree of logic in the jumps between species and some species were immune to it.

The use of rats as the species that got it before it jumped to humans was quite clever (and gives nowt away about the book as that info can be got on the back cover of the book), and it is an altogether more devastating virus/infection that than in the works of Max Brooks (although I prefer Brooks' zeds personally) as theoretically the virus in Keene's book is scientifically more plausible than that in Brooks' books.

Certainly would be a lot easier to survive and make a comeback in Brooks' world.

What would be interesting to speculate upon at some point would be the effectiveness of various bug out plans and locations against different strains of the undead/infected. Maybe sticking to the bigger names in each section.

Undead could be those as imagined by Romero, Brooks, Keene, Recht, Bourne or similar. All of those have created Zed infested worlds that are very similar, but that would have enough small differences as to require a little thought with regards to what would work.

Infected could be the nasties from the likes of 28 Days/Weeks later.


Might be fun to try and figure out what bug out plans, survival plans, locations etc would be effective in Ireland if an outbreak turned out to be a little different than what would generally be expected.

RiderOnTheStorm

If you really like the idea of an island, then there is one for sale off the west coast

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/this-island-could-be-yours-for-just-100k-30563728.html

Fallschirmjager

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

If you really like the idea of an island, then there is one for sale off the west coast

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/this-island-could-be-yours-for-just-100k-30563728.html

Sold for 105k, cmon which one of ye here was it?

Mesrine65

bilbot79 wrote: »

Isn't it privately owned?

The island is still privately owned by the Baring family trust.