111. Last Game of the Season

Directly west of the Cliffs of Moher are the Aran Islands, three exactly. You need to take a ferry out of Doolin. Like the boat to Skellig Michael, this is dependent on the weather. If the swells are too high, no go. They hand out plastic bags in advance in case you get sea sick. I wore my rain pants just to be sure and sat outside in back. The ride did not disappoint. Who needs Disneyland in Ireland. Just travel the Wild Atlantic Way.

There was only a few people on our boat. But when we landed and went to lunch, oh my God, a flood of younger boys and girls were there for an Irish Football League. They were not spectators. They were players. When I arrived the games were over for lunch time, so I have no photos of their play. I've included two online pics in this post to show that Irish or Gaelic Football is a game using both feet and hands. The goal is to attack the ball, not tackle the opponent.

In the pub I sat across the counter from a local family, grandparents with two daughters/mothers and their grandchildren in jerseys. I ordered a local dish, the cabbage and bacon special.

I didn’t come here for burgers or fish and chips. When I asked the adults if they liked cabbage and bacon they all answered enthusiastically, “A lovely dish.” The ten year old boy opposite me though didn’t answer, but made a quizzical frown. It turned out he was the smartest one there. The bacon was several slabs of ham over shredded boiled cabbage with mashed potatoes of course. Irish comfort food. This may be my last meal of the day, so I fill up the tank. 

This was also the last game of the season for these kids before basketball and soccer seasons started. Irish football, played with hands and feet, is king in Ireland. What was especially noteworthy was that the mainland school children from Connemara came here to this small island of Inishmore to finish the season. Both groups, mainland and island, live in very isolated communities. So coming together to support the competition of their children has built friendships and common bonds between the families.

While on the Island I had two hours after lunch. A few of us decide to pay for a horse drawn cart to circumnavigate the island’s sites which were maybe three in total. We first went north out to an abandoned area of the island that looked like the remains of Pompeii. But no volcano here, just more limestone rock that had been cleared from the many fields to make more walls. All those lines of stone made it look like the foundations of an ancient city. 

At the far point lay a large shipwreck from the storm of ’67. Eaten away by time and oxidation the colorful rust orange hull looked like a whale carcass that had been washed ashore.

No beach here, Just more rocks and boulders. Some trees and plants found footing in the skeleton of the ship. A few people climbed inside as if they were scuba divers exploring a sunken ship. But not me. The boulders outside were challenging enough. I’m not going inside even if it’s still on land. I have limits. When asked about the shipwreck, our horse cart driver, Martin, was only three years old when it happened, so he had no memory of that storm, nor the ship.

Riding to the south end of the island we ended up at a graveyard situated on a small hill. The gravestones can be seen from town. But what can’t be seen is what is in the middle. Strange enough there is a large depression at the top of the graveyard. Down inside is the “sunken church” of St. Kevin, an early Irish Christian missionary. It struck me that the term “sunken” was inaccurate. No, this was intentional, purposeful. It’s yet another burial site, this time Christian with a ritual center of devotion deep in the ground, but open to the sky. 

This site was not buried beneath a mound of earth with secret passages like New Grange. And it was not visible on the top like the dolmen burial site in the Burren. Those sites were over 5000 years old, pre Christian. This was more recent, A.D. if you consider that recent. The “sunken” church also wasn’t like the Gallarus Oratory on the Dingle peninsula which was a simple beehive like space with light portals east and west. No. This church had a black stone engraving of Christ above a solid stone block altar. And arches for a one time roof.

But what all these burial sites did have in common was sacred devotion. I walked past a few of the current gravestones on the perimeter above. Some were only a hundred years ago. The few that I could read gave not only the dates, but the age of the deceased as well. The ones I saw died in their thirties.

Walking back towards town I passed workers rebuilding . . . yet another stone wall. Some had come from far and wide to participate in a “Stonewalling Festival,” including sculpture as well as building with stone. The island definitely had a wealth of stone since it was a geological extension of the landlocked limestone of the Burren.

We finally returned on a different, larger ferry boat towards Galway Bay. The kids still wore their jerseys while laughing on wobbly sea legs, some fully drenched from sea spray, This was why they really came. This was fun! Irish football can’t compete with a wild wet ride in the Atlantic. Even I had to walk slowly, grasping adult arms, one after the other, until I arrived inside the cabin. Then I could rely on metal poles. My camera battery had long since died, so all those kid photos have to be left to your imagination.

And all those football jerseys, girls as well as boys, were riding the waves of enthusiasm as well as the white cap swells. This had been their last game of the season. And the boat ride back was what they’d remember the most. And by the way, the boy who didn’t like cabbage and bacon, he won his game. Going back a winner! 

I’ve seen a lot of stones and ruins. But today was a lively festive event of families and children, competing, bonding, getting wet and wild. It was fun!

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P.S. These islands have also been featured in the recent movie “The Banshees of Inisherin.” I haven't seen it yet, but now of course, I'm curious.