Bronze Age and Breezy in the Aran Islands

We rose early on Sunday 2 July to take advantage of a gap in the weather – it was going to be rough, but the wind was due to back westerly, putting it on our beam as we headed north from the Blaskets (‘Gentlemen don’t sail to windward’ is a mantra that I have relearned many times – most recently on a tough trip from the Azores to Falmouth in 2019). We hugged the coastline past Ventry harbour and under Slea Head before turning north through Blasket Sound and past Sybil Point towards the Aran Islands.

As expected, the wind backed and increased to a steady Force 6, with some big seas and dark clouds to ponder as we gradually pulled clear of the magnificent dark cliffs of Sybil Head and the Three Sisters. In the showers you could see the rain turning uphill as it ran in towards the angry looking rocks and the wind swept it up over the land; nonetheless we were making good time with the boat well reefed down. When the sun appeared, the contrasting colours were stunning. The barometer was steady, our speed over the ground between 7 and 8 knots and every time the sun came out, morale soared with the gannets, guillemots and occasional puffin who were our only accompaniment. This really felt like the edge of the world.

We reached Gregory Sound between Inis Mor and Inis Maan around tea time. Inis Mor offers a remarkable landscape from seaward – layers of massive, almost horizontal slabs of limestone rock reaching up 100 metres out of the sea. Fairly flat on the top, with rock pavement almost everywhere, the land is marshalled into sparsely soiled fields by dry stone walls where only sheep can graze. It’s called ‘karst’ and in the gullies where the rain erodes the limestone, there are rich seams of alpine flora. Halfway along the south coast of this fortress-like island there is a remarkable Bronze Age fort, Dun Aengus, dating back almost 3000 years. We were not the first people to come to the edge of the world…

A violent squall greeted us as we turned to port around Straw Island and into the fine shelter of Killeany Bay. We waited offshore until it cleared, giving way to bright sunshine and then anchored a hundred yards or so south of the pier at Kilronan, clear of the moorings and the ferry route, with plenty of cable out. The forecast was for blustery conditions overnight so we decided to wait until morning before venturing ashore.

Monday morning brought an improvement in the weather, so we broke out the bikes and headed ashore. We made our way along the north side of the island to Portmurvy where we looked in vain for the colony of grey seals (they’d taken advantage of the weather and gone fishing) before turning south across the narrowest part of the island and up to Dun Aengus. There were a few visitors, but not many and from time to time, we had the place to ourselves.

It’s a  very striking place, unsurprisingly a candidate for World Heritage listing. The fort is arranged as a series of concentric hemispheres, centred on the edge of those sheer cliffs. The location invites you to look south and out over the ocean; the walls clearly suggest protection from the land to the north. You might imagine that throwing things off and into the sea was a key feature of life inside the dry-stone walls, but it’s difficult to imagine the circumstances in which such a place could have supported a thriving community. It occupies a commanding position, with clear 360-degree views on any day when an invader might approach. Around the outer perimeter wall, rocks are arranged like tank traps – a ‘chevaux de frise’. But who were they afraid of? Or was it a site with a strong religious or ritualistic significance?  Nobody’s quite certain, but the rituals concept seems plausible… The sheer size and remoteness suggests that this was a wealthy and influential civilisation. Why did they come here? Were they running away from something, or exploring the edge of their geographical envelope?

Inspired, we slid gently downhill on our bikes and returned onboard. That evening, there was a knock on the hull. The wind was blowing over 20 knots and the rain showers were keeping most people indoors, so we were slightly surprised to find a Frenchman in a rubber dinghy clinging to the stern. He and his colleague had entered harbour an hour or so earlier and picked up one of the visitors buoys upwind of us. It turned out that our new friend was the crewman, sent ashore on some errand. He was unfamiliar with the dinghy and the outboard was brand new… and out of fuel. For some reason, Frenchmen don’t like rowing rubber boats. They either scull them (works well in calm weather) or they kneel in the bows and paddle like a kayaker on an Olympic slalom course. With winds gusting to force six, neither technique was very effective and instead of making ground into the sheltered harbour, he was blown rapidly out to sea. He was lucky. If he hadn’t caught hold of Escapade as he drifted past, he would have flown some 20 miles down sea and all the way to Galway.

‘You ’ave saved my life’ he proclaimed. There was no phone signal in the anchorage, so we probably were his last chance. We had a short discussion about the capacity of internal fuel tanks in small outboard motors, gave him some petrol, decided not to lecture on the merits of rowing and watched him return safely to the Mothership, where his skipper seemed blissfully unaware of the excitement.

By the morning, the weather had eased enough for Julie to put in a long swimming training session ahead of her planned Solent crossing in September. Mid morning, the Frenchman returned, this time armed with a large bottle of fine French wine as a mark of gratitude. We discussed our mutual cruising plans and then he cast off. Unfortunately he did so without first starting his engine… which promptly flooded. As he headed off towards Galway again, we threw him a line until order was restored once more.

The wind veered and eased further, so after lunch we weighed anchor and ran downwind to Galway City, taking in a Spanish lesson and a work Zoom call using the strong 5G signal booming out from Connemara to the north and the Cliffs of Moher to the south east. There’s a set of lock gates to negotiate at the entrance to Galway docks and we waited a while for a big ship to clear her berth before bringing Escapade right into the city centre and a berth in a tiny marina in the southern corner of the port. The harbourmaster and his team had all gone home so we were unable to access shore power, fresh water or find shoreside toilets that evening. Fortunately, we had better luck with the ‘run ashore’…