Aran Islands

This weekend, I went to Galway and the Aran Islands with my friends Dylan and Zak. Friday night we stayed at the apartment of Dylan's friend in Galway. We got up early Saturday to get tickets to the Aran Islands. For the price of 36 Euro, we got roundtrip bus rdes to the ferry, ferry to Inis Mor, and a night in the Kilroan Hostel on the island. The Hostel was at Kilronan, the main town on the island and where the ferry lets off.

The Aran Islands are part of the Gaeltacht, the parts of Ireland where Irish is still the local language. For the first time, I actually heard people in casual conversation using Irish. Inis Mor, the largest of the three islands, is about nine miles long and two miles wide. For 10 euro, we rented bikes for the day and explored.



We headed out down the main road for a few miles before coming to a spot where we sat, rested, and took in the beautiful surroundings. The ground on the island was completely covered with rocks. This makes for an amazing visual, but also has a depressing understory. People on the island once used dragged seaweed out of the ocean and layered it with sand to make soil so that they could farm something. Many of the farmers here still use this practice, I'm told. Oliver Cromwell used to say towards his enemies in Ireland "To Hell or Connaught"(the Western section of Ireland). I understand why there was a time when the two could be equated.



A little further along, Zak got into some trouble with his bike, and this friendly farmer whose property we were nearby came out to see if we were alright.


We pressed on, and soon we got to Dun Aengus, a fort originally built in stone age, pre-Celtic Ireland. The fort was restored and expanded many times later, up through teh medieval period. The back of the fort is a sheer cliff face that drops 100 meters into the sea. Sitting in this ancient fort built thousands of years ago felt unreal. I imagined myself in the sndals of an ancient warrior, and honestly, I felt pretty good about this fort. I mean, it's a difficult run up that hill, it's steep, stony, and full of obstacles. My prehistoric enemies ain't got nothin' on me.



After taking in the feeling of the fort, we sat outside and ate our lunch. We brought a picnic of loaves of bread, serrano ham, and cheese, which we shared by passing around a knife to cut off chunks. It was the perfect break for a busy day fending off attackers from our fort.



After lunch we kept moving, got to the "Seven Churches", which are actually only two old churches at an old monastic site, now covered with graves, many of which are actually very recent. Then we began the ride back, for which we took the low road, which was along the coast. We stopped for a break by a beach, then pushed on until we got back to Kilronan.

In town, there were a bunch of French tourists waiting for the day's second, and last, ferry back. An impromptu rugby game broke out as they passed the time.


Ah, now just to end the fantastic day of biking with a hearty meal in town, right? No! Not a single place in Kilronan was serving food past 4:30 PM (much of the town shuts down during the winter, summer is the tourist season). We hiked about 15 minutes outside of town to the island's hotel, where I got a hearty traditional Irish stew with lamb, barley, carrots, and potatoes. The perfect ending to a fantastic Irish day.

The whole time we were there, we had near-perfect weather. The sun was shining most of the time without any clouds in the sky. The weather was cool, but when biking, it became the perfect weather to keep cool while moving around. The day before we were told it was freezing. The islands are absolutely beautiful, and from what I've done here so far, biking Inis Mor is the first thing I would recommend to any visitor to Ireland.

All my pictures from the trip can be accessed here.