Inis Mor, Aran Islands, Co. Galway, Ireland

Today mum and I went to Inis Mor which is the largest trio of islands known as the Aran Islands. It is by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever been with breathtaking views from the cliffs, green fields and white sand beaches. We had originally planned to hire bikes or walk the island but when we got there mum saw the horse and cart tours and she couldn't say no to the big browns eyes of Ronny.... the horse. I however couldn't deny the big brown eyes of Angus.... the cute 20-Something Irish guy, so instead of hiring bikes or trekking it out on foot we splurged a little and did a private horse drawn tour of the island.

We started off towards Dún Aonghasa the oldest circular fort in Europe; along the way Angus was telling us about the history of Ireland as well as about the island itself. For example, the island is made up of hard limestone (as I will soon find out the hard way) which is not fertile for crops in the least, so the farmers used to drag seaweed up on top of the rock and use that as their soil for growing grass for their horses and cattle to graze on. There are no food crops on the island and only three trees on the whole of the island (imported by rich foreigners who have built their holiday homes there.) While traversing the island you'll also notice that the whole of the country side is divided up into little plots using low stone walls - there is no cement used in the building of these walls, just rocks piled on rocks

 and they've been around for hundreds of years. 

These walls are used to divide up the land, to show where one farmers land begins and the other ends, they have little V gaps in the fence to make the rotation of cattle easier.

When we got to Dún Aonghasa we had to disembark the cart and climb 1km uphill to get to the fort. This is the view of the cliff side from the ruins of the fort....

On our way down we encountered a Leprechaun House, these miniature houses are all over the Irish country side and yet no one really knows what purpose they serve.

On our way down from the fort we stopped and mum bought me an Aran sweater because I've been looking at them the whole time we've been in Galway and these ones were made right on the island by the highly skilled knitting women. Each sweater takes over 60 hours to knit and assemble, none of the women use patterns they do it all from memory and there are nine different stitches that all mean something different. Angus told us that about 50 years ago when fishermen were lost at sea and their bodies finally washed up, if they couldn't identify the man by his face they could identify his family by the sweaters they were wearing because the women in each family used a specific stitching pattern. 

On our way back into town Angus points out that the vet is in town today; the only day out of the month that they have a vet. The bank is open one day a week for four hours (the bank workers are flown in from Connemara) and during the peak tourism season bank hours are extended to a whole two days, that's eight hours a week...

After a ferry ride and a bus ride back to Galway mum and I rushed around trying to put together Thanksgiving dinner, I ended up eating stir fry and rice while mum had SuperMac's (the Irish version of MacDonalds, invented here in Galway!) and now we're sitting in the common room watching re-runs of Friends....