Seasons of Solitude on Inishmore

If you’re among the 50 million Americans who claim Irish roots and yearn for a glimpse of the Ireland your ancestors knew, consider visiting Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands, in winter. Chances are, this is the Emerald Isle your grandmother remembers.

Although electricity found its way to Inishmore in the late 1970s and cable television in the ‘90s, this is an Ireland where cars are few, where freckle-faced lads who’ve never heard of Michael Jordan herd sheep along country roads, where women sit by turf fires knitting the heavy Aran sweaters so popular with tourists, where men with eyes clear as blue glass, their skin burned dark from sun and weather, go out in small, tar-covered boats called curraghs on seas untamed by sonar or cell phones.

Here on eight-mile-long Great Island (Inis Mor in Irish), where Galway Bay meets the Atlantic, is a living museum of old Ireland, in winter untouched by tourism gloss.

A 60-minute ferry ride from Rossaveel (Ros an Mhil) or, if you’re so inclined, a six-minute plane ride from Inveran, just west of Galway, brings the winter traveler to an Ireland where the merging of sea and sky and land captures the imagination and repairs the spirit.

In contrast to the summer months, when 2,000 tourists with bikes and backpacks are dropped off every day, winter is the season of solitude. Bike rental shops are closed, as are most of the restaurants and guest houses. Visitors disembarking from the ferry in Kilronan, Inishmore’s principal town, are met by pony traps, which in summer vie with minibuses as tourist transportation.

Waiting at the dock on the morning of my visit last November were Pat Connelly and Patrick O’Flaherty and their ponies, ready to take visitors around.

I was in Ireland to research my next novel, but the lure of the west, the legends of the fierce O’Flahertys who five centuries ago held this, their ocean kingdom, in an iron grip, and the O’Flaherty name being recent in my family tree--all this called me to Inishmore.

I decided on a day trip via the ferry from Rossaveel because it was the closest port to Inishmore, and the 10:30 a.m. departure was convenient. Ferries also go from Galway, and for those who balk at a sea voyage in winter, flights on Aer Arann from Connemara Regional Airport at Inveran, 20 miles west of Galway, are available for $45 round trip.

The day was cloudy, brisk and cold, the air stingingly pure, almost painful to the nasal passages of a Southern Californian. The ferry moved out against the current; we were only in Galway Bay, but the seas heaved and rolled like the Atlantic. Those with weak stomachs who stood outside were rewarded with a thorough drenching from the 6-foot spumes that swept across the deck.

Inside the heated cabin, I was one of nearly 20 passengers, mostly islanders on their way home after a day or two in the Galway area. The locals were easily identified; unlike those of us who periodically consulted our watches and stood to stretch our legs during the hourlong journey, they sat patiently, hardly moving until we docked.

I’d decided that a day trip would do to get a visual sense of the place. So when Connelly offered to give me a tour in his pony trap for $12 and get me back in time for the 5 o’clock ferry, I accepted. After wrapping me in blankets from head to toe, he pronounced me an Aran woman and we were on our way.

Above the clip-clop of Brownie, the pony pulling the trap, Connelly regaled me with tales of the island and reassurances that my return journey would be smoother because the ferry would be moving with the current. His lovely Irish lilt won me over, and before long we were fast friends, discussing the price of local real estate, American politics and feminism.

Inishmore has been inhabited for thousands of years. The landscape is dotted with the remains of prehistoric stone fortresses and with early Christian sites as old as a 5th century chapel ruin.

About 800 people live on Inishmore year-round, and many rely on tourism to supplement their hard work fishing and farming. The islanders’ story was poignantly told in the 1934 Irish film “Man of Aran.” Hollywood discovered the lighter side of Inishmore in the 1997 romantic comedy “The Matchmaker.”

Whitewashed houses brightened the landscape, most of them with roofs of slate rather than thatch, though enough thatch-roofed cottages are around to satisfy tourists.

As we crossed the island from Kilronan to the Atlantic Coast, Connelly pointed out endless stretches of stone fence, tidy hamlets, tumbledown ancient chapels and breathtaking cliffs. Finally we were at the entrance to the fortress ruin of Dun Aengus. Connelly would wait for me; first I’d need a bite to eat before I tackled the half-mile walk to the cliff-top fort.

Conveniently, there was a place called the Snack Shop, where I fortified myself with a delicious vegetable soup accompanied by an open-faced tuna-salad sandwich. The whole-wheat soda bread was so good that I made room in my backpack for a loaf to take “home.”

No repast in Ireland is complete without a pot of tea, and to the Irish, tea-making is an art. The typical American tea, a bag thrown into a mug and even reused, won’t do in this land where all woes are healed with a sustaining “cuppa.” First the pot is scalded with boiling water and then emptied. Next, tea leaves are spooned in and the pot is filled with boiling water. The brew is steeped until the tea is good and dark. Then a tray is assembled with a pitcher of milk, a bowl of sugar (no artificial sweeteners pollute this tea), a cup and saucer, napkin and spoon. It was sheer comfort on that blustery day.

The piercing clarity of winter light, what there is of it here, calls out to artists and writers. On the path to Dun Aengus I observed art students bundled in scarves and jackets, perched on rocks, sitting behind fence posts and stone walls as they sketched.

With the wind at my back, I passed them by. Moving along quickly, stopping only to admire and photograph the breathtaking landscape, I reached the fort after 20 minutes, a solitary visitor engulfed in silence and ancient history.

Wind tore at the blanket I’d pulled tight around my head and pushed me toward the edge, where a slight misstep meant a 300-foot plunge for the careless tourist. I resisted the temptation to look over the precipice, choosing instead to photograph the wind-scoured hills and distant cliffs slowly eroding from millenniums of brutal battering by Atlantic swells.

Dun Aengus consists of three concentric walls of stone at the cliff’s edge, defended on the landward side by a huge field of sharp, pointed stones set close together. The Fir Bolg, a prehistoric tribe whose leader was called Aengus, are credited with building the fort around 500 BC. Excavations show that the fort was in use in the 5th century, when the Fir Bolg were converted to Christianity.

My commune with the past finished, I made my way down the rocky path. Before returning to Connelly and his pony trap, I explored the Dun Aengus craft shops and purchased an Aran sweater.

A browse through the craft shops of Inishmore is well worth the trip. Knit caps, gloves, scarves, traditional rawhide shoes, braided belts and, of course, the islands’ signature sweaters made of oatmeal-colored local wool can be purchased at a fraction of the cost on the mainland. (I paid $90 and saw the same sweater on the mainland for $135.)

The intricate Aran designs and stitches once served a morbid purpose. Women knitted these waterproof sweaters for their fishermen husbands and sons. Because each family’s design was unique, when a body washed up on shore after drowning and was too disfigured to recognize, the design of the sweater would identify the deceased.

Back in the pony trap, my guide pointed out more ruins, farms and other sights, all the while exchanging pleasantries, in Irish, with locals we met along the road. By the end of the day, I, too, was saying Da duit, “God be with you,” in greeting--and, sadly, in farewell.

When Connelly left, I still had more than an hour until departure from Kilronan, so I walked a short distance along the harbor to a restaurant called Dun Aengus. There I ordered a “starter” of mussels and a glass of Guinness. A steaming platter of shellfish in a buttery broth arrived promptly, along with a slab of brown bread, both large enough to feed a party of four.

Well fed and glowing from the effects of the Guinness, the invigorating walk and relaxed conversation, I boarded the ferry, realizing why islanders never stay away from home for too long. Here, where the boundaries between heaven and earth blend into one, where villagers still speak of seeing “the wee people” along the road, where guests never risk their luck by leaving through the back door, those who need renewal of the soul return time after time to this land far to the west and remote enough to seem another world.

On Inishmore, in the absence of traffic and street lights, anything is possible, yet nothing seems more important than the comforts of a warm fire, a full stomach and a long history of surviving the whim of the slate-colored sea. An intrepid winter traveler can discover what others who arrive in the summer avalanche of tourism cannot: the true spirit of Inishmore, its storm-clouded skies, the mist settling over Celtic crosses, a curious kind of patterned light found nowhere else in Ireland and, above it all, the cry of gulls, voices from the past, the continuous roar of the sea forever lashing the sturdy shore.

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GUIDEBOOK

Aran for a Day

Getting there: Delta and Continental have connecting flights, LAX to Shannon. Fares start at $558.

Island Ferries goes between Rossaveel and Kilronan. Fare, $22.50 round trip; telephone 011-353- 91-561-767. Aer Arann flies from Inveran to Inishmore for $52.50 round trip; tel. 011-353-91-593-034.

For ferries from Galway: Galway Tourist Board, 011-353-91-563-081; fax 011- 353-91-565-201.

Where to eat: The choice spot is Dun Aengus restaurant, on Kilronan harbor. Also recommended: Joe Watty’s pub, on the road to Dun Aengus fort.

For more information: Irish Tourist Board, 345 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10154; tel. (800) 223-6470; Internet https:// www.ireland.travel.ie.