Remembering Ireland
It's Ireland's day. We were fortunate enough to go there in 2007. Our trip was up the west coast, from Kenmare north to Achill Island. My head is there, today. Specifically, I'm conjuring the glory of the Blasket Islands.
Great Blasket Island, (An Blascaod Mór), County Kerry, Ireland
Great Blasket Island, An Blascaod Mór, with its empty splendor, lies just off the Dingle Peninsula, in County Kerry, Ireland. (It's the mountain-looking land on the center-left of the picture below.) The drive to the boat dock was . . . well, it was Ireland. Transporting. Any previous favorite places can easily be replaced by these vistas.
The boat ride there was . . . interesting. The weather seemed innocent, the sea looked placid in the cove where we met the boat. (Although, when I look at the above picture, I can see there were many small swells, closely following one another.)
Then, we got out past the peninsula. Large swells rolled under us the entire way there and back. A water roller coaster, and I don't ride roller coasters. I focused my sight on our destination, in order to minimize my mounting anxiety.
That took my mind off wondering if I made the right decision to get on that boat.
We anchored just off the island, in a small rocky inlet. Well, inlet is generous. It was really a place where the rock walls cleaved enough to hold a spot for a rubber dingy. Getting off the dingy to climb the slippery, mossy rock dock was tricky. But, nothing was going to deter me from getting up to those hills. We wandered among the deserted homes and ruins for hours. Time stilled as did our breath. I believe Rick Steves, or one of his writers, used this apt term for Great Blasket, "a seven mile poem."
It was easy to understand, as the wind stiffened, the challenging life lived on this grassy rock. Though, this was one of the better places to be during the Great Famine, because the islanders subsisted on fish, unlike the rest of the country. But life was brutal and resources scarce. The government moved all the inhabitants off the island in 1953, do to the difficulty faced by those living there. I recommend reading Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. I did while we traveled the rest of the west coast. It was a good way to get a sense of island life. You can imagine the women sweeping the floors of the stone cottages, the men venturing out to sea in the currach boats, and the ceili dances after the meal was eaten.
Seals bathed themselves in sunlight on the cove beach. Sheep grazed freely, as some descendants of the original settlers of the island still graze sheep here. Many others, interestingly, settled in Springfield, MA! Our group was small. It was easy to feel completely alone in this lovely, windswept place. If you are fortunate enough to visit Ireland, I highly recommend it, as long as the seas are not too rough!
