WHIDDY ISLAND

island in Bantry Bay, County Cork, Ireland. It lies 2 miles (3 km) west of Bantry, at the head of Bantry Bay. It is about 3.5 miles (5.5 km) from northeast to southwest, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) across. On it are ruins of a castle, Kilmore Church, and three 19th-century redoubts associated with a British naval station of that time. An international oil corporation completed a crude-oil terminal on the western side of the island in 1968 that was capable of catering to 300,000-ton tankers. In 1979 the tanker Betelgeuse caught fire and exploded at the oil jetty, sinking and causing the death of more than 50 men. The terminal closed thereafter and did not reopen until the late 1990s. Pop. (1981) 54; (1991) 34.