Reviews for The Aran Islands and Connemara

The average rating for The Aran Islands and Connemara based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-08-23 00:00:00 Cameron Hearne JM Synge is an Irish playwright - author of The Playboy of the Western World - who was involved with the Gaelic League and spent a lot of time on the Aran Islands and done a bit of travel around Connemara. This book is a turn of the century memoir/travel log about life on the west coast of Ireland. Synge talks a lot about rural life, local traditions, hardships, reforms (and whether they work or not), and the people who resided here. One topic he talks a lot about was emigration, with the book providing a lot of perspective on living in Ireland in the Victorian era and why so many people ended up leaving the country. He also collected folktales and poems, and included these stories in the first half about the Aran Islands. Ireland in the 1800s and early 1900s was a very different place than what we see today, esp the west coast. It was insanely rural, quite poor, and gull of hardships. There were stories and traditions too, but life was pretty rough. There was a movement starting the Victorian era with Home Rule and on into the 1900s with eventual independence, regarding Irish nationalism, the Irish language and Irish tradition in an attempt to find Ireland's own identity and de-British-ify the island after 800 years of British occupation (starting with the Normans). Irish language was a main way such nationalism was furthered. Many scholars and nationalists went to the Gaeltacht (often islands) to learn Gaelic, much like Synge did on the Aran Islands. (Though Synge later backed away from the nationalist movement as his interest was more in the people, traditions and folktales rather than in political movements and war.) Synge's book is part memoir, part travel log, part folklore collection and part essay. It provides a very good and descriptive picture of the time, explaining about daily life in Ireland's fringes. He talks about things such as cutting turf, fishing in curraghs, collected kelp, digging potatoes, funerary practices, childrearing, village shops, washing, spinning and dying cloths, and more. If you're interested in learning more about Irish life 120-140 years ago in the years leading up to Independence (not that Synge knew that!) from a contemporary and well-written author, I highly recommend this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-12 00:00:00 Tonia Owens A lovely little book about life on the Aran Islands early 20th century. Traditional way of life explored. Synge really enjoyed, even loved, the time he spent there and the people he met and this really comes across in this book.