Tapu te Ranga | Island Bay Library

Tapu te Ranga Island Bay Library is located on the busy Island Bay Parade.

The Library offers preschool, school visits and holidays programming alongside the usual fare of print and digital resources.

The Māori name was gifted by mana whenua partners Wellington Tenths Trust and refers to the island which was the site of a small pa, a refuge of Ngati Ira following the Te Ati Awa invasion of Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara.

This is the place where Tamairangi, wife of Ngati Ira chief Whanake, and her children sheltered in a stone- walled pa following a penultimate onslaught at Turakirae.

When Ngāti Mutunga attacked the island the family was evacuated by waka to Mana where they were placed under Rangihaeata's protection.

The name may have been borrowed from the Hawke's Bay district (possibly by Ngati Mamoe). Elsdon Best writes that it was an ancient name, commemorating the famed tapu house of Wharekura in Hono-i-wairua, Hawaiki.