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Inishark or Inishshark (), sometimes called Shark Island, is a small island neighbouring the larger Inishbofin in County Galway, Ireland.
Like Inishbofin, Inishark is composed almost entirely of Silurian and . It rises almost to above sea level.
The documentary film Inis Airc, Bás Oileáin (Inishark, Death of an Island) produced in 2007 by C-Board Films for TG4, told the story of the last years and abandonment of Inishark. Produced and directed by Kieran Concannon, it featured interviews with surviving islanders and archive newsreel footage of the final evacuation.
In 2009, Boston College's Irish Studies program (in cooperation with Irish Film Institute) screened Inis Airc, Bás Oileáin (Inishark, Death of an Island) as part of the Irish Studies Film Series telling the evacuation story from the surviving islanders' viewpoint.
The name Inishark, Irish Inis Airc, may derive from an ancient chief or king named Erc; other writers connect the name with searc, "love" (Old Irish serc), or with Old Irish airc meaning "hardship" or "strait."
The island's patron saint was Leo of Inis Airc, who lived there sometime between the sixth and eighth centuries. The remains of a 19th-century church named after him lie on the island today.
On Easter Sunday, 1949 three young islanders drowned travelling to Inishbofin for mass. Soon afterwards, during a period when the island was cut off due to bad weather, another young man died from appendicitis. These incidents as well as emigration were contributing factors driving the clamour to evacuate the island, as by this point there were few young people remaining on it.
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