Seannacht i nGaillimh, part 2: Inis Meain

I decided to spend my last day in Galway on Inis Meáin. As I overheard a Frenchman saying on the bus:

“If you really want to know what is France, you do not go to Paris. With all this beautiful countryside, why do you go to Paris?”

Sometimes you have to out in the middle of nowhere if you want to learn where you are. Inis Meáin (the "middle island") is the least-visited of the Aran Islands. The ferry there was carrying supplies - a new TV, among other items, loaded by squinting, sunburnt men in caps into the sides of the boat - as well as people, and most of the people were locals traveling between the island and the mainland.

The boat was named Banrionn na Fharraige (that spelling might be off - I've not got my dictionary with me), which means "Queen of the Sea."

Now, my computer isn't letting me upload photos, so I'll keep this short for now and edit more in later (I'm sure you're all devestated at this sudden absence of pretty rocks). I went onto the island, and found a shop, which was closed. As was the other shop (there are two, I think, on the island), as was the hotel. I had no map, so I walked along for an hour or so until I saw another human being. She was sitting in a chair reading a book, in the yard, outside a house with a small sign that was advertised as a tea shop.

I tiptoed up and tried to look lost and friendly at the same time. She looked up, and greeted me - in Irish. Then she laughed and apologized at the look on my face.

Keep in mind that I've been learning to read and write Irish, not speak it - like most languages, it can be hard to recognize off the page.

It turns out the lady was from the Netherlands. She was a psychologist who'd learned Irish, moved to the Aran Islands, and decided that was they needed was a tea shop. I bought tea and banana bread. She stood next to the table and we talked for a while. She pointed out the path, and I paid and wandered off, and promptly got lost again.

It was lovely, though. All I could think, walking down the road, was, "Lord, let this not be the last I see of this place."

As I said, photos later.

Seannacht i nGaillimh, part 2: Inis Mor WILL UPDATE WITH PHOTOS

The boat was crowded but comfortable. It went fast enough to kick up sprays of salt water over everyone on the lower deck. It was named “Ceol na Fharraige,” which means Music of the Sea.  “Inis Mor,” by the way, means Big Island.* Inis Mor is usually where visitors go – it has bikes for rent, Aran sweaters for sale, and a Centra.

I acquired a map at the information station and made a plan of what to see – the Aran Islands are full of ruins and interesting historical sites.

When I got there, however, I found at I had instead was a killer headache and no idea whatsoever where I was on the map. So I went to the Centra and bought water and painkillers (noting that the receipt printed Go Raibh Maith Agat at the bottom), and then... wandered.

I was feeling a little disconsolate and more than a little lonely. I don’t do well travelling on my own. So when I found myself walking down a road beside a beach, I stopped, and turned, and stared. It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen all spring, including all the flowers in Belfast, and it was EMPTY. It was still too early in the morning for people to have congregated on it, and it was mostly on the weedy end, full of shallow pools of snails and limpets, and vast fields of pebbles and seaweed drifts, and the kinds of rocks that just beg to have mermaids perched artistically among them.

I came back up the beach three hours later, smelling of salt water, with my trousers wet through and seaweed between my toes. It was glorious.

The only problem with this was that I now had no idea where I was. The only person I met on the road was a dog, who walked with me for a while till we came to the sign that pointed upwards towards a couple bored donkeys and a hiking trail. Thinking that a trail had to go somewhere, I followed it.

Needless to say, I got hopelessly lost. There were cliffs, with huge green pools in the rock, high hilltops where all you could see were rocky shingles, wildflowers and small striped snails, and long lines of walls that separated the cows’ pastures.

I was very proud of myself for climbing over several of these without serious injury, though there were some nasty brambles that tried their hardest to change this.

I made it back to the pier before the boat left, though, and got a sandwich and some crisps from Centra because my granola bars were gone. I wandered through the sweater store, surreptitiously taking photos of the sweaters there for future knitting reference.

We were ferried back to the mainland in time for dinner (granola bars and Guinness). I spent that evening trying to figure out where to go next, because it seemed silly just to go back (which was what I wanted to do).  

* Some place names sound better when they aren’t translated into English.