Ene 27 2011 Aran Islands: literature hostile land

• 590x393 Reverte

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  There is a "pub" in Galway, city of the west coast of Southern Ireland, on whose door a poster announcing: "Last place where a beer before Boston (U.S.)”. Of course I took a pint to celebrate the ingenuity of the owner. And of course, also knowing that the statement was not true.

There is a pub in Galway, city of the west coast of Southern Ireland, on whose door a poster announcing: "Last place where a beer before Boston (U.S.)”. Of course I took a pint to celebrate the ingenuity of the owner. And of course, also knowing that the statement was not true.

Because between the output of Galway Bay and Boston there is an archipelago of three inhabited islands in which, a total, may be five or six pubs. I mean Aran Islands, one of the most desolate landscapes on Earth and also the most attractive for travelers eager for something different. They are called, Gaelic, Inishmore (Big Island), Inishmaan (middle island), and Inisheer (small island). Curious middle name, as Inishmann, which is smaller than the larger and bigger than the small, logically should be called middle island. But geography has never been regulated for obvious reasons. The sum of the inhabitants of the archipelago do not think I spent a lot of fifty. And there is only one police station with a pair of agents, on the larger island, to ensure law and order. As to inns and "bed & breakfast”, I estimate that no more than half a dozen.

We in Ireland, the land that loves its writers more and where, reportedly, a poet hiding behind every tree

There are two or three daily ferries from Galway, some faster than others, and can go back in the day. But it is advisable to stay a couple of nights. In my opinion, the most interesting of these is Inishmaan, the middle: less touristy than the large and, curiously, less populated than the small, I think it best preserves the rural and marine spirit of these islands carved in stone, windswept and hardened by Atlantic storms. Irish Gaelic soul saved in this archipelago best essences, among other things, the purity of their language. It is one of the few places in Ireland where Gaelic has not been swallowed up by English.

Otherwise, These uninhabited islands can boast such a high culture. Born here, in the median island, the narrator Liam O'Flaherty, author among other works of the short story "The Informer", which led to the John Ford film 1935 and won several Oscars. Also shot a mythical island in article 1934 other O'Flaherty, Robert an American man, that had nothing to do with the previous: called "Men of Aran" and is one of the first major documentary film history, together with that of Luis Buñuel 1932: "The Hurdes, Land Without Bread ".

And finally, advice of the great poet William Yeats, Irish playwright John Synge came to live on the island median, where we still keep the home that housed, early last century. Your stay in Irishmann born his book "The Aran Islands", a story that takes place between anthropology and myth.

So small and so literary?, wonder. Everything is explained: We in Ireland, the land that loves its writers more and where, reportedly, a poet hiding behind every tree, there is a tragic playwright under each tomb, in all pubs, novelists have drowned in alcohol crazy customer stories.

Javier Reverte