I had no idea how much my parents named us kids from the Irish side until we met the sweet Irish lady named Katherine from whom we rented her cottage. Along the way we passed through the city Athlone (almost Athlyn's name) and I saw Ryan's Pub and saw a street named Leigh (my middle name that no one ever pronounces correctly as Lee) and we passed one of the many St. Patrick's church's. (Another thing we found funny was when we got our passports stamped the inspector read our last name Moore and said "Oh, Moore... good Irish name...you have finally come home." Steve and I looked at each other because as far as we knew, his family was from England. But we looked it up and Moore or O'More is the 4th most common name in Ireland. It means "Strong Mountain") As we drove on through the moorlands, we discovered Western Ireland has a famous resident called St. Brendan the Navigator. In the 16th century Brendan, a monk, traveled the Atlantic in a small boat to Wales, Scotland and France to spread Christianity. We ran across one mother calling for her son Brendan and Steve said to our Brendan, "Quick you better run to your other green eyed Irish mum."
Even though the kids would have been happy to just stand in a green field and call it good, I really wanted the kids to experience the Celtic culture so we decided to take a 30 minute ferry trip to one of the Aran Islands called Inisheer.
As we waited for our boat, we climbed over the most amazing limestone fields called "burren," which in Gaelic means "rocky land."
These rocks stretched for miles. Apparently it takes quite a bit of practice to become an experienced 'potholer' to navigate the desolate and treacherous porous rocks and deep crevices.
The Atlantic is so much colder than our nice tropical Pacific ocean we are used to on Guam and Trevor was lamenting that he couldn't go scuba diving here. Natalie was looking for sealife washed up into the tide pools on the rocks. There were warning signs to watch out as the waves cound crash up strongly onto the rocky shore.
Our Ferry was a pretty fast boat and Trevor took over the camcorder responsibilities. He has pretty good sea legs and doesn't do as much "jiggy-cam" that I unfortunatley am capable of.
We had bottle nose dolphins swim along with us enjoying the wake. They jumped in and out of the water so effortlessly and crisscrossed with each other so fluidly when they came up for air. It was really a treat to watch.
Many Catholics fled to this rugged tiny island when Cromwell invaded Ireland in the 1100's. Weather is savage here and soil not plentiful. But the people adapted themselves to the raw climatic conditions, developing a survival system of total self-sufficiency. The learned to mix layers of sand and seaweed on top of rocks to create fertile soil, a technique used to grow potatoes and other vegetables. They made their still famous Aran sweaters from the wool from the sheep (The sweaters patterns are unique to each family and passed down generation to generation. If a boat was shipwrecked or a fisherman drowned at sea, the sweater pattern would reveal who exactly had perished.)
People have said landing on this island is like landing on the moon it is so stony and remote.
People have said landing on this island is like landing on the moon it is so stony and remote. This rockwall is nicknamed the "Great Wall of Aran."
We climbed one rise and came upon this ancient church, with a surrounding cemetery, nearly buried, and missing its roof.
Maybe it was an attempt to preserve the church or block it from the wind, because when the wind was blowing, the guys had to put their coats back on-- even in the sunshine.
We climbed one rise and came upon this ancient church, with a surrounding cemetery, nearly buried, and missing its roof.
Maybe it was an attempt to preserve the church or block it from the wind, because when the wind was blowing, the guys had to put their coats back on-- even in the sunshine.
Down in the church there was an altar with an alien looking Christ figure. This island was and still is a mystical center of Celtic Christianity.
People will make pilgrimages to the remote Aran islands to try to find God, to hear Gaelic, and to find some essential aspect of Irish culture that had been lost to the more urban regions of Ireland.
It certainly felt like we stepped back into time.
We climbed to the top of the island to see O'Brien's Castle that was built in the 14th Century. Natalie stopped and took a little breather.
The castle had succumbed to the elements, but its haunting form still enchanted.
The views were amazing with these puzzle-pieced pastures.
I looked over and saw these stone faces on my troops and realized we'd better find lunch. We retraced our steps, passing some cute thatched roof houses down by the shore, and found a little cottage and ordered potatoe soup and "poasted" sandwiches (thought it was Gaelic but we mistook the P for a T).
We didn't find the seals sunning on the beach but Natalie found some unique shells before we took the ferry back to the mainland.
Oh to be able to spend a whole summer here...this little island absent of all the comforts of the western world had endless possibilities and filled my mind with a myriad of stories waiting to be told. The poet Yeats, born in Dublin, and fascinated with Irish legends said "Go to the Aran Islands, and find a life that has never been expressed in literature." So I pack this island away in my mind and return to it whenever I can.
People will make pilgrimages to the remote Aran islands to try to find God, to hear Gaelic, and to find some essential aspect of Irish culture that had been lost to the more urban regions of Ireland.
It certainly felt like we stepped back into time.
We climbed to the top of the island to see O'Brien's Castle that was built in the 14th Century. Natalie stopped and took a little breather.
The castle had succumbed to the elements, but its haunting form still enchanted.
The views were amazing with these puzzle-pieced pastures.
I looked over and saw these stone faces on my troops and realized we'd better find lunch. We retraced our steps, passing some cute thatched roof houses down by the shore, and found a little cottage and ordered potatoe soup and "poasted" sandwiches (thought it was Gaelic but we mistook the P for a T).
We didn't find the seals sunning on the beach but Natalie found some unique shells before we took the ferry back to the mainland.
Oh to be able to spend a whole summer here...this little island absent of all the comforts of the western world had endless possibilities and filled my mind with a myriad of stories waiting to be told. The poet Yeats, born in Dublin, and fascinated with Irish legends said "Go to the Aran Islands, and find a life that has never been expressed in literature." So I pack this island away in my mind and return to it whenever I can. 
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