There's a Long Island in Ireland. Here's how they will celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

This Monday, Maurice Coughlan will leave his home on Long Island, head to the city and join in on some St. Patrick's Day festivities.

He'll likely watch the parade, then meet friends for a meal at his favorite local pub. And, as he said: "There'll be quite a bit of drinking after."

But Coughlan, 59, will be about 3,000 miles from our Long Island. His Long Island is in County Cork, Ireland. Population: 15.

Called InishFada or Inis Fada,  Ireland's Long Island is but a fraction of the size of our Long Island, which has a population of 2,928,347.

Our Long Island measures 118 miles long, 23 miles wide. Ireland's is just 3.1 miles long and barely a half-mile wide, though it does boast a landmark familiar to our famed landmarks here: Copper Point Lighthouse.

Located off the coast of West Cork on the southwestern-most coast of Ireland, between Schull Harbour, Roaringwater Bay and the Celtic Sea, Ireland's Long Island is the third-largest of what are known as Carberry's Hundred Isles.

It resembles our Oak Island, located near Gilgo Beach, or those tall-grass-reeded old summer shack islands you can still find on some South Shore bays.

"Tumbledown houses, stores and sheds dating back centuries add to the apparent isolation, and a maze of closely-knit fields, gradually being reclaimed by opportunistic fauna and flora, complete the impression," is the description found on the West Cork Islands Tourism website. "Walkers, bird-watchers and boaters will be in their element here — enjoying the afternoon whilst keeping an eye out for otters, seals, dolphins, whales, and even the occasional basking shark."

As Coughlan, who bought a ramble-down home on the island 23 years ago, renovating it himself, said: "I grew up very much involved with the water. Wind-surfing, sailing, fishing. When you're surrounded by water it makes a big difference. It comes second nature.

"If I'm not near the water every day, I'm not living."

Seven days a week, Coughlan runs his 33-foot, 12-passenger ferry from Colla Harbour across the third-of-a-mile-wide Long Island Channel, bringing handfuls of "day-walkers" to the island in the morning, then back to the mainland in late afternoon.

'Nature rules there still'

The island once had a small bed-and-breakfast type inn called Castaway East, but owner Tracy McSeveney closed it about two years ago in the wake of divorce.

Though McSeveney wasn't from Ireland — she said locals called her a "blow-in"— she soon was embraced by both mainlanders and her fellow islanders on Inis Fada, including some whose families lived there for generations. And, her small inn, which also had outdoor camping, soon attracted visitors worldwide.

While none were from our Long Island, McSeveney wrote in an email, she added, "It used to be a standing joke" whenever she said she was from Long Island that she was referring to the one in New York.

As for her time on Inis Fada, McSeveney wrote: "There is a magic about that forgotten island, and nature rules there still. The wildness and sense of being remote soothed my soul, and the stresses of modern-day living fell from my shoulders as I was engulfed by echoes of the past."

She recalled she learned much from the fishermen, including how to navigate the channel in a small punt even in stormy seas. 

"The impact of living on the island was life-changing — and the greatest treasure discovered there was my true self."

Cork tourism officials noted the local waters were once home to pirates. And, two nearby places have familiar names: Baltimore and Coney Island.

While Inis Fada's population once soared to more than 300 in the 1840s, it has dwindled steadily in the two centuries since, falling as low as just five full-time residents in 2006. 

One of its natives, Florence Driscoll, famously made his way across the Atlantic Ocean, landing in New York in the 1850s. Driscoll, known as "Big Flurry" with some of his 13 siblings nicknamed "Red Flurry," "Black Flurry," "Little Flurry" and "Mad Flurry," eventually settled in Kansas. One of his children, Charles, became the editor of The Wichita Eagle, and wrote a book called "Kansas Irish," chronicling the family legacy.

Coughlan was born about 20 miles from Long Island on the Mizen Peninsula — the southwestern-most point of Ireland on the North Atlantic. This is where Guglielmo Marconi first experimented with transmitting trans-Atlantic radio signals to Newfoundland in 1901, that success leading the inventor to set up a radio shack a year later in Babylon here in Suffolk County. That shack, now preserved in Rocky Point, used to communicate with ships approaching New York Harbor.

The coastal area from the peninsula east to Schull — the nearest big village to Long Island — calls to mind the rural days of our Long Island.

The town there has a population of 669. Its secondary school, Schull Community College, houses one of the only planetariums in Ireland, as well as a sailing school, and the harbor hosts the Fastnet International Schools Regatta each year.

Officials said the area of County Cork and nearby County Kerry attract about 400,000 North American visitors annually, many traveling to the Beara and Mizen peninsulas and scenic coastal area around Schull.

About 40 years ago now, Coughlan said he visited our Long Island. "I had a cousin who lived there," he said. "I liked it, especially on the water."

St. Patrick's Day festivities

So, how will Inis Fada residents and those from the West Cork area celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

Likely, many will end up at the parade and then at the pubs in Schull including O'Regan's by the Pier and The Bunratty Inn.

While in the United States most think of a typical St. Patrick's Day meal as boiled corned beef and watery cabbage, that's not what celebrants will be eating in Ireland.

A likely meal would be more like a beef roast, Shepherd's Pie or some other form of lamb, and the Irish classic "colcannon," which features buttered mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage. Seamus Heaney, the head of Visit Cork, said in an email this week that many will also feast on "Bacon and Cabbage," green cabbage with mashed floury potatoes and bacon, often topped with a creamy parsley sauce.

"A very tasty dish indeed!" he wrote."100% Irish butter and whole milk is used in the mashing."

Of course, Coughlan said, most celebrants will also be drinking some good Irish whiskey or pints of Guinness.

As Peter Casey, the "bar man" at The Bunratty Inn said in a phone interview this week, there's nothing like St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.

"Every village, every town, has a parade," he said, "and there'll be old cars and tractors and lots of people marching."

Post-parade Monday, Casey said pubs will be packed.

"They'll come, have their food, have a couple of pints — and then they'll go away early, because, sadly," he said, "everyone has to work the next day."

Asked what constitutes going home early, Casey laughed, and said: "That's like asking how long's a piece of string."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”