Ireland's Aran Islands

The Irish playwright J.M. Synge (1871-1909) first came to the Aran Islands in the summer of 1898 looking for inspiration and to learn the Irish language. Over the next several years he would return again and again, growing more connected to the people and the wind-and- sea-battered land they inhabited. Synge’s most famous work, “Playboy of the Western World” was inspired by a story he heard while on the islands, and caused riots in Dublin when it was first staged in 1906. The foremost playwright of the Irish Renaissance — a movement inspired by strong political Nationalism and a revival of Celtic traditions — Synge was co-founder of the Abbey, also known as the National Theatre of Ireland. All six of his plays are either set in or heavily influenced by his time in Aran. The three remote Aran Islands of Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer hide in plain sight in the mouth of Galway Bay. They are still predominantly Irish-speaking, insular and, as even in Synge’s era, considered a place lost in time.

From “Ireland’s Aran Islands, Hiding in Plain Sight” by Andrew McCarthy for the New York Times; Photo by Andy Haslam 

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