My love affair with the Aran Islands began in the Summer of ’76 when I went to Inisheer, the island closest to the coast of Co. Clare. I went there with a sketchbook, pencils and a camera and reached far beyond myself, inwards towards a me that wanted to express the magic and wonder of the wide open spaces outside of me.  The world of Nature and its rich language of line, shape, pattern and colour beckoned and seduced and one journey led to many more and the islands became a canvas of self expression and exploration which to this day evolves and gives joy beyond imagination. Sometimes words take over from image-making. This is how I last experienced Inis Mor in the Month of May when the islands are in their natural glory.

Inishmore

I thought I was mistaken, that I was brain deep in some wishful recall of other summers spent on the banks of the Shannon in Limerick when nature played unperturbed by the urban sprawl. But no, I wasn’t dreaming. It was early morning and the call of the cuckoo was filling my bedroom, easing summer with breathy expectation onto the island of Inishmore. It came in robust rhythm through the curtains and infused my being which had been landlocked by the rich fields of County Meath for one cold winter too long.

There is a space between sleeping and waking; that space where anything is credible and mixed images of the dream world melt into a soft impressionistic palette that washes no other part of the day with such delicacy. Then there is a moment when reality knocks at the door of ease with its disquieting imagery of bills and anxieties in these mean days of recession and the jagged jaws of survival clamp shut on anything passionate or even vaguely whimsical.

So as my mind fingered the worry beads of debt and followed the chain of unending concerns, I heard the dawn voice of the seasonal bird and with it came the voice of my father  ‘The Summer has arrived. I heard him today…the cuckoo’

It was his annual mantra in the month of May after the swallows had carried the first hints of sunshine from the deserts of Africa and the Hawthorne had come into full bloom on the banks of the river

Summer has indeed arrived to Aran over the past few weeks and is richly evidenced in the spectrum of flowers that fill the ditches and lanes of the island. The invincible song of the skylark eclipses the dying drone of the Aer Aran plane every time it lands at Killeany.

Some nasty showers that have the potential to drown any illusion of romance from the day tripper’s face roll in unexpectedly from the northwest and continue their inclement path across Galway bay.

Daisies and buttercups are competing in the clover meadows and some late primroses are still hugging the sandy edges of small fields defying bright sunbursts and competing with the lacey clouds of cow parsley that fill the air with sweet perfume.

As I trawl the seashore and hedges for images to photograph and sketch, I hear the voice of the poet, Mairtin O Direain whispering love for his homeplace. Did I ever think that the poetry that I memorized for a nun obsessed with lingual precision and grammatical exactness would become a comfort zone of sounds and words in a living correspondence with the rich land upon which I walk now? The lines of one particular verse wash over me like the tide over the rocks, each word echoing the natural voices around me;

 

Cois chosta ag Cill Ronain

Chuala me glor tomhaiste na bochna ag mortas as a cumhacht Ar na tranna beaga idir na carraigeacha chuala me an t-uisce ag siorcarnach faoina ghra leis an ngainneamh.

By the coast at Kilronan, I heard the mighty voice of the ocean boasting of its power In the tiny inlets between the rocks I heard the water whispering of its love for the sand. Somewhere on the horizon of economic, political, global unrest and fears about the future of our planet there exists a microcosm of unpolluted beauty. Nature abounds in the flora and fauna of Inishmore and there are roads that lead up to a horizon above which birds sing in a blue sky that for a while has been hidden in the pages of children’s picture books. I wasn’t born on this island but some part of my soul belongs in the dry stone walls and the towering cliffs and even on a rainy day, I find grace there that can erase the ordinariness of everyday existence.

 

Like O’Direain

I will always find peace there,
just for a little while,
among my people
on an island of the sea

Faoiseamh a gheobhadsa
Seal beag gairid
Imeasc mo dhaoine
Ar oilean mara.

 

Gabhail Tithe/Gables Inis Mor.
Watercolour copyright Walshe.