Island hoppers and Aran jumpers

Views of Aran/No 1. Day-trippers to Inis Mor

The three arcane rafts of stone that lie between Galway and Clare have attracted attention from outsiders for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. The Aran Islands - Inis Mor, Inis Meain, and Inis Oirr - are layered with treasures both physical and metaphysical. They contain, most famously, the 3,000-year-old cliff-top structure of Dun Aonghasa, the purpose of which has exercised many imaginations over the centuries: fortress, temple, tomb, amphitheatre, ceremonial centre, or something else entirely?

The Irish-speaking islands also contain the history of a unique culture and a way of life which has long been shaped by the unpredictability of the surrounding sea. In his introduction to the (posthumously-published) classic anthology of the islands, An Aran Reader, Breandan O hEithir, himself a native of Inis Mor, observed: "To be an Aran islander is to be someone special, part of a long and many-faceted tradition, growing up in a bilingual community with an intense interest in its own history, just that trifle removed from mainland life and, perhaps, as one recent writer on island life commented acidly, imagining oneself to be just a shade better than most."

Over the years, antiquarians, writers, painters, anthropologists, folklorists, cartographers, journalists, film-makers, botanists, and linguists have visited the islands in their scores. J.M. Synge put his ear to the floorboards of the Atlantic Hotel on Inis Mor and became entranced by a culture that would provide him with the raw material for his best works: Playboy of the Western World; Riders to the Sea; and The Aran Islands.

Robert Flaherty came for two years and created his self-serving and controversial "documentary", Man of Aran, which has at least the dubious merit of having immortalised the boatmen who rowed superhumanly at Flaherty's order through a huge storm that owned nothing to special effects.

James Joyce came walking here with Nora Barnacle. Patrick Pearse set up a branch of Conradh na Gaelige the month he came to Inis Mor in 1898. Orson Welles rode a bike round Inis Mor early on in his extraordinary career. And aside from the well-known writers from the islands - Liam O'Flaherty, Mairt in O Direain, Pat Mullen, and Breandan O hEithir - other writers, such as Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Leo Daly and Aidan Higgins, have all written work inspired by Aran.

Perhaps the most celebrated Aran author of recent times is Yorkshire-born Tim Robinson, who came to visit and stayed for years, creating his magical palimpsest-type maps and books, Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage and Labyrinth.

The visitor's long fascination with these islands, particularly Inis Mor, continues. In fact, with the introduction of regular Aer Arann flights in 1970, and daily ferry services, there are now many, many more who come to look at life on Aran than there are living there. Last year, Island Ferries carried 42,500 passengers to Inis Mor alone during the summer months of June, July, and August. Aer Arann carried 2,500 to Inis Mor in July. Both companies reckon the proportion of day-tourists to overnighters (and islanders themselves) is about 7:3. For an island that measures not more than 14.5km by barely 4km at its extremities, and a population of just 800, these statistics amount to something like a temporary annual invasion.

So what do people who come to Inis Mor for a day-trip make of the island? Well, for those who come off the ferry onto this relatively remote west-of-Ireland pier expecting peace and tranquillity, as the great majority do, a surprise is in store. The scene that actually greets them is one not uncommon to that which awaits every tourist outside Asian bus and railway stations: touts.

Up to 30 Hiace tour vans, tails to the sea, line the pier awaiting the first ferries of the morning. The best pitches are those nearest to the ferries. There's no rota or code among the drivers; it's simply whoever arrives first gets the best position.

Regulations stipulate that the drivers/ guides cannot solicit for business outside their vehicles. The resulting vista is not unlike watching a row of champagne bottles that threaten to pop at any moment: a long line of burly men, all leaning as far as possible out of their windows and waving maps. Watching the tourists take all this in as they walk up the long pier towards Kilronan is to see expressions ranging from amazement to bewilderment, from intimidation to annoyance.

Competition is fierce, as all the tours cost a fiver each and all go the same route: to Kilmurvey, drop off there for the walk up to Dun Aonghasa, and back again to Kilronan. There are also three rent-a-bike places around the pier, all of whom charge a fiver to rent a bike for the day.

The jarveys, of whom, according to themselves, there are some 17, are allowed on to the pier (without their traps) to solicit business. As this reporter discovered, trying to find out what a jarvey charges is akin to attempting to discover the Third Secret of Fatima. In time-honoured fashion, what a jarvey charges is whatever both parties feel mutually happy with, on a scale that will slide further - far further - with some passengers than others.

Islander Maura O'Toole is the only female tour-driver on Inis Mor. It's her second year taking tourists around the island and she prefers to park and wait further away from the pier, rather than engaging in the scrum down there. She gives a leisurely, informative tour, to Kilmurvey and the seven churches at Onaght, and back along by the seal colonies on the coast road. Her lively, inclusive commentary is edged with wit and irony.

"So electricity changed the island?" asks day-tourist Katy Power from New Mexico. "That's right," replies O'Toole. "The arrival of the washing-machine finally liberated the women."

Since June, Duchas charges £1 to enter the pathway at Kilmurvey which leads to Dun Aonghasa. It's an unpopular fee which prompts much dark muttering among those who pass through. Yet another heritage centre is planned for this site.

Katy Power has taken the ferry over from Doolin for the day. "They must have been fearless people, whoever built this," she says, looking carefully over the edge of the cliff at Dun Aonghasa.

"I almost didn't come today," she explains, walking back to Maura O'Toole's van, "because the guide book said the place would be over-run with tourists and it is, but I thought I'd come anyway and see if I could see through all that." Later, before she gets on the boat back to Doolin, she says coming to Inis Mor has been the highlight so far of her six-week holiday in Ireland. "It's so unlike anywhere else I've ever been. Really special."

For the 40 Sicilian English-language students who arrive the following day, their daytrip to the island is destined to be memorable for rather different reasons. It's the afternoon, and their return boat will be leaving shortly, but many of them have seen no more than the pierside shops and restaurants of Kilronan. They are lying on the ground in groups of six and seven.

`WE ARE resting because nearly everyone was seasick on the way out," explains one of their teachers, Sabrina Campagma, who was also ill. She abandoned all idea of renting bicycles to explore with the students. "My stomach," she says simply, and points to her wan charges in empathy.

Elisa Sacca (16) and Sandro Sirma (17) are among the few who didn't succumb to illness. "We learned about the island in English class in Galway yesterday," says Sacca. "We know the natives talk in Irish and that big fort up there, whatever it's called, was built to keep Cromwell from invading the island." What does Sirma know about Inis Mor? "I don't know nothing," he says, shrugs his shoulders, smiles, and goes back to his sunbathing.

Joyce and Jack McCambridge are from Kansas City, here on a day-trip with Irish Cycling Safaris. "I was surprised this morning when I met a girl on the boat who told me she's spent her whole life here," Jack says, in the pierside Bayview cafe, where they're waiting for their return ferry. "I couldn't believe it. I mean, it's kinda landlocked here, isn't it?"

"There's a lot more people here than I anticipated. And I wasn't expecting so many stores. It seems very commercial; I thought it would be very quiet." says Joyce. What was she make of Dun Aonghasa? "I didn't have a magical moment up there or anything, but I did wonder what those people had been defending themselves from. They must have been terrified of something."

Jack looks blankly out the window at the same question. "I know what he was thinking about when he was up there," laughs Joyce. "Lunch!"

Belgians Sophie Noppe and Veerle Van Acker are sitting outside the knitwear shop on the pier, eating ice-creams. They've come with their husbands on a day-trip from the base of their rented house in Connemara. "Dun Aonghasa was quite nice," Sophie says. "It's like what I was expecting - ruins, a bit of history, and a nice view. But I'm glad to be leaving. A day is definitely enough here."

Both women say they were very surprised at the number of fellow tourists, and by the tour vans at the pier. "We've already done a lot of day-trips, but we've never seen so many people anywhere else," comments Van Acker. She looks around her at the racks of rent-a-bikes, the Hiace vans, and all the milling tourists, and she laughs, and says, "We're like bees, all going to the one flower."