The Aran Isles lie out in the Atlantic, some twenty-nine miles from shore, being visited by a small steamer twice a week. We took passage on the Duras with Mr. Walker one morning soon after our arrival. All kinds of people and a great variety of cargo were on board. We stood out to sea steadily, and in a few hours reached what is known as the South Island. Here we dropped anchor about five hundred yards from shore and commenced unloading our cargo into the sea, to be taken care of by a great crowd of curraghs which swarmed about the ship. (In explanation it may be stated that the curragh is a great institution: it is a lightly framed, skeleton boat covered with raw cowhide or canvas and thoroughly tarred, in which the skilled native can go anywhere in all weathers. It is universally used on the coast from Donegal to Connemara.) Boards were tossed into the sea, which were quickly gathered together by the curragh-men, bound with ropes, and towed ashore. We had a drove of pigs on board, and their feet were tied together with ropes, the four in a bunch, and the animals piled up in the curraghs till the boats would hold no more; then they were taken near the shore, liberated, and allowed to swim to land themselves. Their squealing and grunting was like an untrained Wagnerian band. There was a cow on board, and she was pushed from the gangway by main strength, plunging headlong into the waves; there was a short pause, when she reappeared, swam ashore, shook herself, and unconcernedly began eating grass, none the worse for her bath. Mr. Walker took a snap-shot of her, reaching land. (We are also indebted to this fine photographer for the many excellent views he took for us in this locality and on the mainland.) Then there were all sorts of other things piled into the curraghs, and, lastly, we too managed to get into one and were rowed ashore.
THE LANDING OF THE COW, ARAN ISLANDS
Mr. Walker then took us to a lace-making school which his Board had established on the island, and we saw the young girls making fine laces in a neat building that had at one time been a church. The instructress had been on the island for more than a year, and Mr. Walker at once gave her a much-needed vacation.
Standing on the shore, I asked a man, "Are there many lobsters here?" "Sure, the shores is red wid 'em, yer honor, in the height of the saison!" was his ready reply.
We again got into a curragh, boarded the steamer, and were under way in a trice for Aranmore, the largest island of the group, where we landed an hour later at a fine pier built by the Congested Districts Board. The village is called Kilronan, and the inhabitants live by fishing. They are a simple and peculiar people, descended from the Firbolgs, retaining some parts of the dress and many of the customs of that race. Their footwear consists of a coarse stocking, over which they wear a tight-fitting slipper of raw cowhide with the hair on it, called a "pampootie." This is a special shoe for use on the smooth and slippery rocks of these islands. They also wear a snug, homespun flannel jacket and short "pants," the whole making an exceedingly picturesque and effective outfit for their work. They have no pockets for handkerchiefs, cigars, eye-glasses, gloves, or even small change, but they seem to get on very well without them.
ON OUR WAY TO DUN AENGUS, ARAN ISLANDS
"The only car on the island"
There is a cable to the island and we had wired to Mrs. O'Brien's cottage for a dinner, there being no hotel. This was ready on our arrival, and, having finished it, we took the only car on the island and drove out to Dun (or Fort) Aengus, described by Dr. Petrie as "the most magnificent barbaric monument now extant in Europe." Its gigantic proportions, isolated position, and the wild scenery by which it is surrounded render the trouble of the journey to see it well worth while. It is built on the very edge of sheer cliffs, two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in height, forming the south and east sides. In form it is of horseshoe shape, although some antiquarians incline to the belief that it was originally oval, and that it acquired its present form from the falling of the precipices. It consists of three enclosures and the remains of a fourth. The wall which surrounds the innermost is eighteen feet high and twelve feet nine inches thick; it is in three sections, the inner one seven feet high, and, like the others, has the centre wall lower than the faces. This enclosure measures one hundred and fifty feet from north to south, and one hundred and forty feet from east to west. The doorway is four feet eight inches high and three feet five inches wide, very slightly inclining, and the lintel is five feet ten inches long. In the northwest side is a passage leading into the body of the wall. The second rampart, which is not concentric, encloses a space about four hundred feet by three hundred. Outside the second wall is the usual accompaniment of a very large "entanglement," thirty feet wide, formed of sharp stones placed on end and sunk in the ground to hinder the approach of the enemy for an assault on the fort and make them an easy target for the bowmen to shoot at. So effective was this entanglement that we experienced considerable difficulty in getting through it, and when we did accomplish that feat we felt fully qualified to appreciate the intrepidity of an attacking party who would brave such an obstruction to their progress when storming the fort. Inside these stones, to the west, is a small enclosure, the wall of which is seven feet nine inches high and six feet thick. Outside of it all is a rampart, now nearly destroyed, enclosing a space of eleven acres. These walls terminate at both ends on the south cliffs. About the first century of the Christian era, three brothers, Aengus, Conchobar, and Mil, came from Scotland to Aran, and their names are still preserved in connection with buildings on the island, the ancient fort just described being called Dun Aengus; the great fort of the middle island, superior in strength and preservation to the former, bearing the name of Dun Connor, or Conchovar, and the name of Mil being associated with the low strand of Port Murvey, formerly known as Muirveagh Mil, or the Sea-plain of Mil.