My best
holiday ever was spent island-hopping down the west coast. Tory, Clare,
Inishbofin, Inis Meain, Cape Clear and Skellig Michael. It’s awhile
ago now, but each year since, I have thought about repeating it;
now I have made up my mind, this is the year.
But what a decision: I want to see the islands I haven’t seen, and revisit those I have, but
there’s not enough money to do it all. Apart from those listed above, I’ve also
visited Inis Óirr, Inis Mór , Arranmore, Achill and the islands in Ceantar na
nOileán in Connemara.High on the
wish list of those not visited are, Inishmurrray with its wonderful monastic and
archaeological remains, Inishturk, Scattery Island in the Shannon estuary and,
of course, the Blaskets ( I’m amazed I
haven’t been there yet).
It was
August, that last time on Skellig, the gleaming gannets seemed to waft on air
currents like fantastic mythical birds, however we managed to miss the puffins which we would
have caught had we arrived two weeks earlier, before the end of July. It is hard to imagine that there could be a more glorious excursion
on a fine blue July day. And then there’s the other worldly atmosphere of
walking between the stone walls on Inis Óirr, the excitement that being in such
an unusual landscape brings. It beggars
belief that you are looking into fields that would, sometimes, barely accommodate
a standing heifer. Moving up the coast, I have the best of memories of the ‘Club’ on Clare
Island very late at night, and the great hospitality we received there; I promised myself
I would be back much sooner than this.
Given the
wild craggy landscape sculpted by a heaving, often angry Atlantic ocean, the
openness of that landscape,the unending skies, the curious constructions left
by generations stretching back to prehistory, the ancient culture less damaged by modernity than elsewhere in Ireland, the special
ecologies associated with that strange mix of karst limestone and climate modified
by the Gulf Stream and the particular
nature of the people that live on
the islands, It is not surprising that I
should have such an urge to go again.
This poem
from ‘Turn Your Head’ refers to a holy well on Inis Óirr. The clear rings on
the rock under the water testified to someone’s alternative ‘cash-stream’.
At Naomh
Einne’s Well
Kneeling
down, the jacket off,
shirt
sleeves rolled to the oxter,
he slipped
his arm into the water,
scooped out
the price of a pint,
then
thought the better of it
and decided
he’d have two.
Then again
the following Tuesday
and the
following Tuesday too
till there
were only clear circles
and coppers
on the green bottom,
a bowl in a
gap in the wall,
a cross in
another with a ladder
of
matchsticks and thread.
To see some beautiful photographs of Inis Óirr visit
Click on the slideshow and enjoy, the well is in there too.
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