studentsineurope

The Soul-Searching Landscape of Irish Literature

The cottage where Irish playwright J M Synge spent his summers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Millington_Synge

I arrived on Inishmaan at night. The sea was rough, and there was no way for our ferry to tie up at the small cement dock. The crew brought the bobbing ferry as close as they dared and one of the crewmen jumped ashore. Two other crewmen took up stations by the door and each time a swell lifted our ship to the level of the dock, the crewmen threw one of us passengers to their waiting mate. We tried to dash to land between the waves that periodically splashed over the pier. Some of us made it, some got wet.  After the crew tossed all of the passengers ashore, they threw our bags after us. When the last bag landed, the lone crewman jumped back into the ferry and the ship chugged off into the dark.

It was raining slightly. We were taken to a bed and breakfast where we unpacked and those of us who were wet decided to change. I was impatient, and while my friends found dry clothes, I slipped out into the blackest night I have ever seen. There were no streetlights and no stars. I relied on a few distant yellow windows and a student’s unerring sense of direction to lead me up a hill and down a dark street to the pub.

I couldn’t have had a more perfect introduction to the island that inspired some of Ireland’s most challenging literature. John Millington Synge (1871-1909), an Irish playwright, once took the advice of his poet friend Yeats and went to live on Inishmaan in a cottage that has now been turned into a museum.  Synge and his literary friends were responding to strong currents of Irish nationalism and believed that the Gaelic-speakers on Inishmaan, Inishmore, and Inisheer (the three Aran Islands) represented a purely Irish culture that had remained untainted by outside influences. Many of Synge’s great plays, including Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World, were inspired by his time on Inishmaan.

Synge’s work was often criticized for its critical portrayal of religion, but looking out over the emptiness of the little island, it’s easy to see why Synge’s characters rely less on God than on man. There are no trees on the island. The fields and green spaces were created artificially by generations of Irish peasants hauling loads of seaweed up from the beaches to create enough soil to grow crops in. There are so many stone walls surrounding the little fields that you have to wonder if they were built to protect the crops or just to have somewhere to put the stones. And as I learned firsthand, there is good reason why drowning plays an important role in the literature about the Aran Islands: Inishmaan and is surrounded by a truly treacherous sea.

All of which makes Inishmaan an ideal destination for the adventurous tourist. Like me, you can get there on one of the Aran Island Ferries out from Rossaveal in County Galway. Bring plenty of cash – there’s no ATM anywhere on the island. And make sure your stay includes a Sunday so you can take in a mass – still said in Gaelic – at the tiny church. There’s a lonely, windswept road to wander with wonderful views of the sea, traditional cottages roofed with thatch secured by stones on twine, plenty of bed and breakfasts, good swimming in the summer, and a warm pub where the few tenacious locals will be delighted to swap tales with a traveler.