Ireland-The small islands of the Green Island
76 images Created 17 Apr 2009
Nothing says 'escape' like a break on a small Irish island, each with a strong personality different from the others.
Some days you feel like you can touch with one hand, remote and unattainable the next day. Yet almost always, a handful of men, monks, fishermen, or pirates, tried to live there and often succeeded. Thus over the centuries, these communities, often forced to rely only on their own strength, have built a strong and unique identity, each with its own history, where an Ireland still lives elsewhere hopelessly disappeared. Three of them are fascinating handkerchiefs of land in a large bay between Mayo and Galway counties where they can find a quiet Irish life on the sea, capable of striking at the heart and revealing different but fascinating stories. Clare Island, where weather may change from deep fog to nearly tropical light, was also the chieftain Granuaille O'Malley's small kingdom (1530-1600 a.D.), Grainne Nì Mhàille in Gaelic, one of the most celebrated pirate women of history. She was a reputed chieftain of a fleet that controlled Atlantic routes off the island. Continuously en route with the British, one fine day, he climbed up the Thames aboard a prison and appeared at Elizabeth's court, claiming to treat "among queens" on an equal footing to direct their disputes. Achill Island, the biggest of the small Irish islands, has some beautiful cliffs and beaches with Mediterranean lights. The microscopic Inishbofin off the coast of Connemara with its quiet bays and a dark castle built by Cromwell as a prison for the Irish irreducible. Just north, Tory island, Ireland's most remote island off Donegal, is the Gaelic world's icon island. Here lives the last "King of Ireland" heir to the traditional Gaelic chieftains, in a handkerchief of land, often isolated from storms, where a hundred people live, and you arrive only with small boats through a perpetually stormy arm of the sea. Here Gaelic is still spoken, and Tory has always been a topos of Irish music and folklore.
Some days you feel like you can touch with one hand, remote and unattainable the next day. Yet almost always, a handful of men, monks, fishermen, or pirates, tried to live there and often succeeded. Thus over the centuries, these communities, often forced to rely only on their own strength, have built a strong and unique identity, each with its own history, where an Ireland still lives elsewhere hopelessly disappeared. Three of them are fascinating handkerchiefs of land in a large bay between Mayo and Galway counties where they can find a quiet Irish life on the sea, capable of striking at the heart and revealing different but fascinating stories. Clare Island, where weather may change from deep fog to nearly tropical light, was also the chieftain Granuaille O'Malley's small kingdom (1530-1600 a.D.), Grainne Nì Mhàille in Gaelic, one of the most celebrated pirate women of history. She was a reputed chieftain of a fleet that controlled Atlantic routes off the island. Continuously en route with the British, one fine day, he climbed up the Thames aboard a prison and appeared at Elizabeth's court, claiming to treat "among queens" on an equal footing to direct their disputes. Achill Island, the biggest of the small Irish islands, has some beautiful cliffs and beaches with Mediterranean lights. The microscopic Inishbofin off the coast of Connemara with its quiet bays and a dark castle built by Cromwell as a prison for the Irish irreducible. Just north, Tory island, Ireland's most remote island off Donegal, is the Gaelic world's icon island. Here lives the last "King of Ireland" heir to the traditional Gaelic chieftains, in a handkerchief of land, often isolated from storms, where a hundred people live, and you arrive only with small boats through a perpetually stormy arm of the sea. Here Gaelic is still spoken, and Tory has always been a topos of Irish music and folklore.
