A young couple who had been on the big Aran island, Inishmore, for just one day late in May produced a set of photograph which, if screened on RTE, would ensure that there wasn't a square yard of the island unfilled this summer. They flew from Inverin, a very short journey, took a small bus run to Kilmurvey and spent their time not very far from that part of the island. They report that the Man of Aran cottage, which Robert Flaherty used as HQ for his film Man of Aran in the 1930s, is not only still standing but is prospering as a tea house.
The pair, with a young baby in arms, decided not to make the climb to Dun Aengus, but took the back roads or lanes roughly westward, photographing as they went: the lovely slim, airy, stone walls, the tiny fields with their lazy beds, but, above all the rocks and cliffs of the western edge, "with their overhangs and shady recesses, especially in the area of what they know as Blind Sound. A man was angling there. There were good pollock to be had, be said. A long time ago, the young man's brother had fished there and recalled that at the height of the mackerel season, one very big pollock be landed contained two whole mackerel.
You never forget the incessant surge of the sea against the cliffs here on the edge of the world, as it seems, with that remarkable swimming pool shaped hole, entirely rectangular, just as if the Board of Works, at Creation, had neatly drilled it out. It never fails to baffle and impress, as it empties and refills from the sea beneath. There are few places in this country, or elsewhere, that justify sitting and watching, sitting and watching. The couple took only a small section of the island for their trip. He knew the whole island well, but even in that last week of May, parts were filling up with visitors, far beyond what he remembered.
So be grateful for whatever small part you can find uncrowded as the year moves on. The juniper and other shrubs raising their heads above the limestone pavements, and, because of the wind, crawling along rather than reaching upwards, is just one of the many things, great and small, which stay with you.