After breakfast we headed for our destination for today, the Aran Islands, one island in particular, Inishmor. To get there we had to drive 35 minutes up the coast towards Rossaveal, where the ferry leaves from (another 40 minute ferry ride).
The ferry trip alone was entertaining. The name of the vessel was ‘Ceol na Farraige’ which we interpreted to mean ‘count yourself lucky if you get a seat’. The ferry was packed mostly with a large group of kids on a school trip. Like kids the world over they consider modesty to be over-rated, and communication is rated by who manages to shout the loudest. The noise going on brought back memories for us of being on a bus in Southern Italy.
Once we got going there enough chop to throw the boat around a bit, whereupon the braver kids (or perhaps the louder ones) developed a game of running through the aisles the length of the ferry without holding on. We had the impression that these kids hadn’t been on a boat before. In the midst of this mayhem, the barman was sitting in a chair with his feet up on the bar reading a book. We wondered if he was preparing us for the Island way of doing things.
INISHMOR : County Galway : Republic of Ireland : Population 800 : Size - 14.5 km long, 4 km wide at its widest point.
The island is famous for its strong Irish culture, loyalty to the Irish language, and a wealth of Pre-Christian and Christian ancient sites including Dún Aengus, described as 'the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe'.
INISHMAAN : County Galway : Republic of Ireland : Population 160
One of the most important strongholds of traditional Irish culture. The island is predominantly Irish-speaking and is part of the Gaeltacht.
INISHEER : County Galway : Republic of Ireland : Population 300
The smallest and most eastern of the three Aran Islands. The island gained some television exposure in the 1990s when it appeared in the opening credits of the sitcom Father Ted masquerading as the fictional Craggy Island.
Once we landed on Inishmor we ran the gauntlet of tour operators along the pier touting for business. Their modes ranged from hiring bikes, to tour vans and buses, to horse-drawn carts (some of which looked like jacooze on wheels). Some of the operators looked decidedly dodgy, others offered what seemed like a professional operation, but most had their patter down pat. When we saw the number of people touting for this business we wondered how they all got on, whether there was enough business for all, or whether perhaps there was a bit of turf warfare and animosity. We found out later in the day that there was a certain amount of the later.
The tour diver that we chose told us that 25 years ago when he had started in the business there were only three operators, and now there are 35, with not enough business to go around. It made us wonder why, if there are 30 operators already why would you choose to get into it as well. However when the economy of the island is based on fishing and tourism, perhaps that explains why.
Our tour operator was a wealth of information and full of humour to boot. He has only lived on the Island for the last 35 years, since he “Married a queer one” (an Island girl), and according to island lore we were under the impression that he was still considered an ‘outsider’, only tolerated because of his wife.
Other facts that we were regaled with was the fact that the island has 3 churches, 3 graveyards, 3 schools, 1 priest, and 6 pubs. They have a bank which is open every Wednesday. A woman comes over from the mainland, the bank opens at 10am, closes at 2:30pm and she has an hour for lunch, so you need to be quick.
Until recently they had a ‘Flying Priest’, he was responsible for Mass on the three islands, fortunately he had his own private plane and so he flew himself between the islands at the appropriate times.
The island is very flat and comprised mostly of rock. The only vegetation that grows is because of the four to five inches of top soil created by their forebears dragging up seaweed onto the rocks in days of old, to try and create farms. There are no sheep here these days, all the wool for the Aran Sweaters is brought over from the mainland and spun and knitted into wool and sweaters as a cottage industry. The land that they do have is just littered with stone, rock and rock walls. They say that there is 1600 kms of stone walls on this little island.
One of our stops on the island was to the ancient semi circular stone fort of Dun Aengus. We say semi circular because its three non-concentric circles of wall run up to and finish abruptly at the edge of the vertical cliff that falls straight down to the ocean below. The inner circle has a large, flat stone plateau running up to the same cliff edge. It isn’t hard to imagine this space being used in ancient times as a theatre, from which the sea and sky were addressed. Add to this the howling gale that was blowing up there today, we got a real sense of the power of the place. There are four ancient forts on the island, no is entirely sure why they are there, Dun Aengus is the best preserved of them.
We also visited the seven churches, ruins of an old church complex that was in fact two churches and their out buildings. In the corner of the grave yard was a small collection of graves of Romans, from when they were in this part of the world. We were also told that some of the graves on this island only lie a few inches below the surface, as the rock is too hard to dig. We did see the smallest church in the world, measuring a staggering 3.6 x 1.8 metres, not much bigger than a cupboard really.
On our drive around the island we saw many stone cross memorials, memorials to fishermen lost at sea. These served as a reminder to just how hard life can be here on this island. Judging by what the weather is like here today (a fine day), we can only imagine how harsh it must be in winter.
After a full and busy day, we headed back to the mainland, and back to Galway. After freshening up we headed into the city. We had been told that this city is famous for its food, drink and its hen/stag dos. After wandering a round for a while looking for the sights without success we came to understand why. It is easier to find a bar with good food, good wine, and good music, than it is to find Lynch’s Castle walls which is noted in the guidebooks as Ireland’s finest town castle. We will have to take their word for it as we didn’t manage to find it, even with prescriptive directions.
Instead of the culture we were looking for we headed into a bar for some food. We were about to leave when we noticed that they were setting up for a band. We thought a night of Irish music might be in order and so we hung around. As it transpired, they didn’t start up until 10:30pm, and played right through until 2am without a break. If we were wanting to see Irish Traditional we didn’t get it, this was retro rock covers, and pub anthems, however it was great. The whole place was rocking. The most interesting part was the people watching. Boys watching girls, girls watching boys, and girls that know they are being watched. There was a ‘Stag do’ group near us that were participating in some decidedly dodgy activities in the name of male bonding. It was a good crowd of mixed ages, however we reached the decision that women above a certain age should not flick their hair every few minutes and wave their arms in the air, that should be left to the under 25s. We got home about 3am having enjoyed a varied and very full day.
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