Inishturk, located 9 miles off County Mayo and inhabited since 4000 BC, has long been a spiritual and cultural gathering place for the global Irish diaspora.
When one was leaving home in the days of the famine to board a coffin boat to the Americas, it was the custom to gather up a coal with the tongs from one’s fireplace and take that burning coal to the fire of a relative or friend’s home fire. One would place the hot coal in their loved one's fire and leave the tongs next to the fire. This was the promise, that upon the day one would/might return home, one would take back the tongs left behind and re-gather a coal from the family fire to take back to rekindle one’s own fire again.
The project was a collaboration between the National Geographic Society’s Human Genome Project, Mayo County Council, and Fáilte Ireland, and it was featured in a documentary by Judith Dwan Hallet and Stanley Hallet, FAIA. This project is now added to the Clew Bay Famine Trail which will be experienced by many tourists.