Galway and the Aran Islands

Galway is one of our favourite cities in Ireland. This is the view of Galway Bay we had from our apartment.

We packed a lot into the time we had in Galway, including a visit to Ashford Castle, the home of the Ashford School of Falconry. We did a drive around Connemara on the same day but I'll tell you about that separately.

At the falconry school we got to spend the morning with Beckett the Harris Hawk and his falconer, Tommy! One of us got very personally acquainted with Beckett.

It was great fun and we learned heaps, including that 'under the thumb', 'wrapped around your little finger' and 'fed up' are all phrases that come from falconry!

This is us in front of Ashford Castle! Before getting this shot we had to wait for a Coco Cola van to cross the little bridge which you can see in front of the castle. The castle is actually a very luxurious hotel and while we couldn't afford to stay there we could afford a trip to the Aran Islands.

Thanks to Daniel's super sleuthing we booked a tour with a local operator named Michael Faherty. He was born and bred on Inishmore (the larger of the three Aran Islands) so he knew heaps about the area and the people. The locals speak Gaelic but thankfully Michael did the tour in english! The photo above shows the walk up to Dun Aenghus fort, a prehistoric ring fort on Inishmore, which sits at the edge of a 100 metre high cliff. Inishmore is about a 45 minute ferry ride from the mainland.

This is Aimee, taking a photo of Daniel, who is standing at the top of the fort. Being this close to the edge is not for the faint hearted! The following shows the view from the top of the cliff toward the sea.

There are three main industries on the Aran islands - fishing, farming and tourism.  It is hard to fathom how anyone can farm here when most of the landscape looks like this!

But you do see the occasional sheep or cow as well as miles and miles of stone fences. Michael also told us that the vegetables grown on the island have a very distinctive flavour. This is because the islanders have to build up the soil with lots and lots of seaweed.

We also visited a site known as the Seven Churches (even though technically speaking there were only ever two churches there). The site, which includes a cemetery, dates to the 8th century. The cemetery is still in use and it is tradition in this part of Ireland for the family of the deceased to dig the grave. Elsewhere in Ireland we found signs indicating that only registered grave diggers could dig a grave!

Another thing we learned on the island is that there is a Dwyer Aran knit pattern! The Dwyer sweater has a moss filled diamond central panel flanked by cable and honeycomb stitches. The diamonds represent a wish for wealth! The Moss stitch is symbolic of nature and the honeycomb symbolises work. Each design is unique to a family and the different patterns were developed to help identify any family, mainly fishermen, who were lost at sea.

And this is what you do at the end of a hard day - have a Smithwicks and wait for the ferry home!