During our stay in Galway, we opted to take a bus tour from the city to the Cliffs of Moher and Aran Islands. Our guide toured us through the countryside to a small city called Doolin, where we took a ferry to Inisheer, one of the Aran Islands. Jacklyn was most excited about this part of the trip, as her family is from the Aran Islands. Before she left, her father gave her a book called “A Woman of Aran” by Bridget Dirraine. Bridget, Jacklyn’s relative, used this novel reflecting upon her life as she wrote it at age 103. Unbeknownst to us, the Dirraine family was well known on the islands. Even our tour guide, a native of Inisheer, knew Bridget’s descendents (Jacklyn’s distant cousins), even though they lived on a different island (Inishmore). He told us stories about Jacklyn’s relatives throughout our entire horse and buggy tour of the island. Jacklyn was in awe and could not get enough of the information he had to share, meanwhile I was violently ill due to the meclizine quickly wearing off from our ferry ride earlier.
Our tour began at a shipwreck on the island’s shore. This boat, named the Plassey, was carrying goods like yarn, stained glass, and (of course) whiskey when it succumbed to a storm and washed ashore Inisheer.
Our tour guide took us through fields of farmland separated by limestone walls.
Especially on the western portion of Ireland, the land is rich with limestone. Pictured left is farmland backing on to a hill composed entirely of limestone. Farmers would collect stones found on their properties and arrange them into walls not only for property separation, but also to allow grass and other vegetation to grow.
About Abroad 