I was on “Island Time” today and got waaaay off the beaten path. Off the coast of Galway are three islands that make up the Aran Islands. Inisheer, is the smallest, where I went the other day and had the pony cart ride around the island.
Today I went to the least inhabited and least touristy one called Inishmaan. It has 200 residents as well as one pub (Pic 8), one church (Pics 2-3), a post office (Pic 11), an abandoned fort (Pic 12), plenty of sheep, and miles and miles of stone fences.
The island was an inspiration for many literary classics such as JM Synge’s works. Synge spent four years (1898-1902) coming to the island to live for months at a time. He built a stone chair (Pic 4 – Cathaoir means chair in Gaelic) looking out over the Atlantic and wrote his books from there. Let me tell you, I sat in that chair and even I got inspired! The view from there is breathtaking.
As you can see from the pictures, there are several thousand miles of “drystone” wall (made without mortar). Most of these are built in the Aran “gap” style, in which spaces between angled upright stones are filled with smaller stones. This allows a farmer who wants to move livestock to dismantle a short section of wall as a temporary gate, and then rebuild that section afterwards. It also allows the harsh winter winds to blow through without knocking down the wall.
I also went to bth ends of the island and saw amazing cliffs and water crashing in. The pictures just don’t do it justice. It was a real rush hearing the waves crash and being right on the edge of the cliff.
When I arrived at the port, this nice old Irishman named Michael O’Malley (can ya get more Irish than that??) asked me if he could take me on a tour of the island. I said sure and that really helped me get my bearings of where everything is because there’s no tourist map at all. After the tour, I had lunch and then hiked around the island just exploring on my own. This would be a great place to just come and chill. Just a few people and lots of sun, sand and surf. Ahhhh…
I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. Enjoy! TGIF!
The Wandering Italian 