The Island Golf Club

The verdict

For a century The Island was the secret of Dublin golf, a links you reached by ferry across the estuary while the city's golfers queued for Portmarnock and Royal Dublin across the water. The boat is long gone, but the sense of arriving somewhere apart remains. Founded in 1890 on the Donabate peninsula, with the sea and the Broadmeadow estuary on three sides, it threads through towering dunes that funnel and frame the holes, a genuinely natural piece of links land that needed little more than a clever routing to become great.

A careful redevelopment by the architects Mackenzie and Ebert, completed around 2018 to 2020, added length, restored sandy edges and lifted the course into Ireland's top tier without losing its quirky, old fashioned charm. It is now a regular in national and world rankings and an easy pairing with Portmarnock and Royal Dublin on a Dublin links trip, minutes from the airport yet a world away in feel.

The holes worth the trip

The Island is all about the dunes. The land rises and falls in great sandy ridges, so the routing weaves blind shots, raised tees and greens tucked into natural amphitheaters, and the wind off the Irish Sea is rarely absent. It is the kind of links where local knowledge and a steady nerve matter as much as length, and where every hole feels shaped by nature rather than a bulldozer.

The stretch through the highest dunes is the heart of the round. The course is famous for one of the narrowest fairways in championship golf, a sliver of turf squeezed between towering dunes that asks for an honest, committed tee shot, and for the run of holes along the estuary where the views to Malahide and the open sea are as good as the golf. The redevelopment added a clutch of strong new holes that knit seamlessly into the old fabric, so the modern course tests the better player while still rewarding the visitor who simply wants to soak in the setting.

Played on a breezy afternoon with the tide in and the light low over the dunes, The Island is links golf at its most atmospheric. Take a caddie if you can, keep the ball under the wind, and accept that a blind shot or two is part of the charm.

Where to stay nearby

Most visiting golfers base themselves in north Dublin or the coastal villages of Malahide and Portmarnock, all within a short drive of The Island and handy for the airport. Malahide in particular makes a charming base, with good hotels, restaurants and a marina, and it sits between The Island and Portmarnock so two of the area's best links are on your doorstep.

On a links heavy trip the smart move is to cluster the Dublin coast: The Island, Portmarnock and Royal Dublin within a few miles of one another, with the city itself a short hop for the evenings. Our golf in Ireland guide lays out the routes and the best windows to play them.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near The Island.