The island's isolation ended in 1970, when Ireland's only cable car began to operate across the strait. The cable car can accommodate six passengers, or one cow and one farmer. As you walk about the island, whose main road is the Beara Way, you will see a deep fault in the cliff, where an episode in the Anglo-Irish conflict played out, the ruins of a 16C monastery ravaged by pirates and, on the island of Oilean Beg, the vestiges of the old castle and St Michael's Chapel.