IN THE PASS OF DELPHI, KILLARY BAY
The port is hardly less depressing. Admirable as a shelter in the days of small vessels, it is unfit for these days when even coasting traffic comes in ships of three thousand tons. It is true they have a dock hollowed out of rock and holding eighteen foot of water; but the Board of Works (a department of Dublin Castle) which executed the work at a cost of forty thousand pounds omitted to notice that there was only twelve foot of water at the entrance: and the accommodation is thought as useful as a second storey with no stair to it. Nearly all the shipping consists in fishing boats: many trawlers, but most numerous of all, the little hookers worked by the fishermen who live across the river in the very odd community called the Claddagh. These people till recently had a "king" of their own (just as happens on the small islands of the coast) and they lived their own life, and indeed still live it, almost wholly distinct from the regular townsfolk. Their thatched cottages scattered in a huddled group without streets or plan of any kind make a curious feature of the place; but it is a curiosity rather than a charm.
In the main street of the town lives a jeweller who manufactures still the Claddagh ring which these folk and the Aran people use for marriage or betrothal: joined hands surmounted by a crowned heart make an emblem which needs no posy to expound it. You can get in Galway also another local object which is worth having, the woman's strong cloak of red or blue flannel with hood to shelter the head in the stormiest of weather.
Perhaps one of the most interesting sights in the place—at least to the angler—is to be seen from the bridge which spans the main river below the broad weir which holds up water for the sluices and mill powers. Here is a long, swift shallow which in summer becomes crowded with salmon to a degree almost incredible; the fish lie under you there, some twenty feet from your eyes, their sides touching as the dark backs sway in the water, so that at the first glimpse one seems to look into a mass of weed. Anglers can be seen fishing there close together, and many hundreds of fish are killed yearly from the bank. It was here that one enthusiast achieved a fisherman's euthanasia, for he dropped dead suddenly in the very act of playing a fish. The papers gave long accounts of the sad event, recalling the dead man's achievements and qualities as sportsman and citizen; then added a final paragraph—
"Our readers will be glad to learn that the rod which Mr. —— dropped was immediately taken up by our esteemed townsman Mr. —— who found the fish still on, and after ten minutes' play, succeeded in landing it—a fine clean-run salmon of fifteen pounds."
What more was needed for epitaph? The soul of "Mr. ——" had departed under the most satisfactory auspices.
Whoever is at Galway and does not shrink from a three hours' sail should really make the voyage to Aran: a little steamer in these bustling times plies in and out twice or thrice weekly. In the sail down the bay you have the long low shore of Connemara on your right with the Twelve Pins rising in superbly grouped mass behind it: on your left, the steep shore of Burren, its rocks shining in the sun, and as you open out, the cliffs of Moher dark and frowning away south of you. Between you and America lie the islands—three of them, Inishmore, Inishmaan, and Inishere—stretching a vast breakwater against gales from the west and sou'west. Inishmore, the Big Island, lies nearest, and when you are landed at Kilronan, the adjacent fields and hill slopes are not much stonier than Connemara. But on Inishmaan you land direct on to a formation of vast, flat flagstones, stepped upwards tier by tier, and you walk as if on pavement, though a pavement filled with deep chinks and crevices in which grow quantities of maidenhair fern. You have easy walking, perhaps, for ten yards together, then a kind of a leap. Here, still, most of the people wear not boots but pampooties—moccasins of raw hide: and men and women alike have the free forward rising gait of those who walk as nature designed man to walk, springing off the ball of the toe. Nearly all are in homespun homewoven cloth, grey or dyed with indigo and madder: the women wear grey shawls, the men frequently a tam-o'-shanter, but oftener the black corded caubeen which is the most picturesque of headgear. Inishmaan is the place to see Aran in its most characteristic aspect and community, hardly touched by the modern world—though many a man and woman there knows well the great cities of eastern America. I heard of a man who made his journey across every autumn: he had been gardener to a rich American, and the millionaire would let no other prune his grapes but this handy islander. So back and forward he went, year by year, on this errand, returning always to his own cabin, his shelter under the thatch which strong lashings held in place against the storm.
But the extraordinary interest of these islands lies in the abundance of prehistoric forts and of very early Christian buildings. The greatest of the forts is Dun Conor on Inishmaan, with walls of dry masonry eighteen feet in thickness; but by far the most famous is Dun Angus on Inishmore which, built on the edge of a steep cliff, needed no protection that way, but turned landward a semicircular front of four vast ring fences of stone—the innermost eighteen feet in height. Between the second and third walls is a chevaux de frise formed by sharp, jagged stones set endwise, very difficult to pass over in times of peace. We have it under Dr. Healy's own hand that an archbishop broke his shins there. This fort might have seemed defence enough for the island, but it is studded over with duns—one of them, Dun Eochail, is only half an hour's walk from the pier, and being set high was once utilized for a lighthouse station. To reach it gives one some idea of the island economy, for half a dozen high-piled walls of loose stone have to be crossed or knocked down. There are no gates in these fields; to let in a cow you "knock" the wall, and then pile it again. But you will not easily knock the walls of Dun Eochaill. The outer ring is only some eight foot high and six wide, but the inner circle rises sixteen foot, and may be twelve in thickness. Who built these fortresses, no man can say; probably that early race whom the Milesians superseded. Yet the population of Aran is by no means the little dark type; many fair-haired women, many a red-headed man are among them, and not a few of almost giant stature. It is not surprising, since for many centuries the O'Briens of Clare were overlords of the islands, and the Clan Dalcais were Milesian, if any ever could claim that title.
Generally speaking, too, Aran is more in touch with Clare than with Connemara; though it serves as an intermediate centre for the traffic in poteen—illicit whisky—distilled in creeks and bogs along Galway Bay. Aran brings its turf from Connemara and carries them limestone in exchange. Stand on Dun Eochaill, the most commanding point, and you may see the two shores, Clare and Connemara, so near, yet so different in their peoples, and you shall have one of the noblest views in Ireland: southward, away past Loophead and the Shannon mouth to the great mountain promontory of Brandon in Kerry; northward, past the Twelve Pins to Mweelrea and Croaghpatrick and Achill even. Or if, as happened when I saw it last, the view is obscured with driving mist, still you may have a glint of sun between showers to fling a rainbow across the wide water; and you may watch a squall of wind and rain pass flickering over the sound, raising a patch of whitening foam where its fierce edge strikes the surface.
It is likely that the nearness of warrior tribes in Clare may account for the number and the strength of these stone fortresses; the island folk, Firbolgs or whoever they were, would not have so ensconced themselves without grim necessity for the labour. Yet all this is conjectural. What lies well within the bounds of historic knowledge is the Christian history of Aran—Ara na naomh, Aran of the Saints, not rashly so entitled.