Wild Atlantic

Monday, August 21, 2023

The Wild Atlantic Way is a coastline route which extends 2500km along the Atlantic side of Ireland.  Well, today, we veered off course, and took a ride IN the Wild Atlantic! 

We left the Port of Galway on a ferry across the bay to the Aran Islands.  The Atlantic was pretty wild, with lots of swells and waves and whitecaps as we crossed.   Even though the boat was a pretty good size, there were lots of "whee bumps" inside. The deck crew kept busy passing out seasick bags!  

There are three islands that make up the Arans.  We arrived at one of the islands-- Inis Mor, (Inishmore) after about an hour. We were greeted by a group of colorful buildings and shops!  We also noted the strong Irish brogue of the locals; we found that this is one of the few places that still speak the native Gaelic, (although everyone also speaks English.)  It's a peaceful and secluded place, home to about 800 people. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to live here full time.

There were several sweater shops...the Aran islands are known for their woolen sweaters.  Aran Sweaters were first worn by Aran fishermen.  The sweaters were created to offer protection from the harsh weather conditions. They are made with intricate stitch patterns which have meaning--each Irish clan has its own pattern.  It is said that if a fisherman was lost at sea, they could identify him by the stitch pattern in his sweater!  The Aran Sweater was made famous by Grace Kelly whose photo in one of the sweaters appeared on the cover of Vogue in the 50's!   The sweaters are beautiful, and obviously still very popular.  Yes, I'm bringing one home...Jim bought me this one for our anniversary!

After some brief shopping, we decided to take a hike to the end of the island to enjoy some of the landscape and scenery.  We were struck by the fascinating stone walls--they are everywhere!  

The stones were gathered by from the land by early farmers to create fields for crops or animals.  The stones were stacked to form a wall and enclosure.  They say there are 1500 miles of stone walls on the three Aran islands!  

We came across some interesting stone monuments and decided they probably are cemetery markers.  We couldn't decipher the Gaelic markings, and found the dates in the 1800's.

There were lovely flowers and berries along our walk.

We came across several ruins...very interesting to see, but no signs posted with a description, so not quite sure what they used to be.  

We saw a school house, but it was hard to tell if it is still in use.  We didn't see any local children running around, so maybe they are all in school!

 

We didn't have time to take a horse and buggy ride, but we did say hi to the donkey behind a stone wall!

When we saw this view at the end of the island, we were concerned about how far we had to walk back...past the blue building to the dock.  It ended up being about 5 miles round trip, so not too bad.

We ended up stopping at one final shop and found a "last chance" rack.  So appropriate. No, didn't buy!

Then we found a nice pub and grabbed a bite to eat and learned about the iconic local "crisps" (potato chips);  this flavor was not my favorite but at least I tried it!

We loaded on the ferry for the ride back to Galway and the Atlantic was not so wild on the trip back home.  (Thank goodness!)   We passed by the Cliffs of Mohr...such a spectacular view of the famous cliffs.  In spite of the overcast skies, we were able to spot OBrien's tower..perched on the highest point of the cliffs.

After returning to the port of Galway, we ventured down to the city center--Quay street and the Latin Quarter. 

It was bustling with people and street musicians. 

We saw quite a few Notre Dame fans who are here for the Notre Dame/Navy game to be played in Dublin on Saturday.  We also saw some familiar faces sitting outside at a street side restaurant--what are the chances of running into your sister and family in Ireland?