Arranmore: The Human Touch

By Eugene Derwent

“Beloved Arranmore”, Peadar Ó’Donnell wrote, “where they are quick to admire your gifts, but where they love you for your faults.”

The ferry boat to Ireland’s largest island, for Achill has now a bridge, sets the pattern. Barring moon-travel no other transport is so friendship-forming. Everybody helps everybody. A hoist with a petrol drum or a suitcase. A firm grip on the shoulder as you step aboard. All hands pile in to hurry the grocer or the publican get his stuff into the boat. A girl loosens the anchor rope, a boy pushes with the boat-hook, somebody pulls in the fender. Then face to face in the hold (so different from the back views in plane or bus) we all laugh and chat together as we steam past Iochtar and Inniscoo and Inniskeragh and Island Crone and the hundred other islands that are like satellites of Arran. Hardships shared are for the islanders a thing of joy, a bond that welds them into one big family, a source of the friendly memories that always draw them home again, no matter how far they roam. A deep sense of freedom within the island compensates for the strictness imposed from without. No one stands on ceremony. No one hurries. You would think that clocks donÕt exist. There are no guards on this island of 800 people (2,000 in summer). ItÕs a great place for a drink. You can take your time when finishing the fast one---and you have seven pubs to choose from. And yet no on eve, or hardly eve, drinks too much. The islanders claim to be living proof that itÕs the rushing of drinks at closing time that is the cause of most cases of drunkenness. The sea around reflects the sunlight. The high latitude prolongs it. Thus the days are brighter and longer than generally on the mainland, and faces are more bronzed. The fishing fleet-30 halfdeckers with four-man crews, 60 punts and flats---dominate the summer scene. And the great thing about it, the islanders say, is that it brings all the young lads home. They are great seamen---it was their seamanship that made the first Arranmore islanders in America settle in Beaver Island and thence establish their colony in Chicago. And they are very careful. Though they travel the high seas from Malin Head to Glencolumbkille, not one ventures the five miles inland towards Dungloe. So you can understand the consternation when, a fortnight ago, they saw a speedboat from Tubberkeen come up under Bunanidd toward Leabgarrow---ÓHe couldnÕt come a wronger way.Ó The boatmen, however, had as charmed a life on sea as he has on land, he made it safely, but the islanders warned him, for their heartsÕ sake, to take a more orthodox route in future.

Lifeboat:
They send wrack to the new factory that belches smoke across the bay at Meenmore. Some find a rewarding sideline in dulce and carrigeen. The Arranmore lifeboat, spick and span, rides at anchor off Calf Island. It is responsible for over 200 miles of coast from Malin Head to Eagle Island, off N.W. Mayo. In the boathouse, where the gear and warning rockets are at the ready, you may read the charts that record the rescues and the works of mercy the crew has performed down the years. The lighthouse is the most powerful on the Irish coast. Enough visitors call in the summer days to dispel the atmosphere of rugged isolation, the lightkeepers are happiest during the lonely watches of the night. ÒA lighthouse without a light is the most forlorn thing on earth,Ó says Jimmy. And he laughs, Òworse even than the pub with no beer.Ó Half the islandÕs seven square miles is arable and very fertile---though sadly in need of lime and slag. But, with just one exception, they do all the work with spades and they actually follow the clearly discernible ridge patterns of one hundred years ago. Time was when every household kept a cow, and the saying went that Òthe house where the cow went dry was always the house with the most milk,Ó but much of the milk now comes in cartons from the mainland. But even today, they are, and they require to be, the worldÕs experts at tethering a cow, by the use of a ring on a guiding rope, they safely graze any shape of available pasture. On the mountain, they cut turf and graze sheep. Two hundred sheep are lost over the cliffs each year.

Great Builders:
Glasgow, London as well as Chicago are the favoured destinations of those who seek work abroad. Though the tendency to settle down abroad has become noticeable, they all come home occasionally. They generally find lucrative employment on construction work. The tatie hokers no longer travel to the harvest fields of Ayrshire. They are great builders. It is because of their fame in this respect that Lieut. General Costello, who recently visited Arran, suggested that they should form their own building contracting firm, for boats, as well as houses, to fulfil orders abroad and at home. Modern houses of various design have been erected everywhere under the Gaeltacht housing scheme, the blocks and timber all being transported from the mainland. Since the E.S.B. threw their powerful cable across the channel, the houses have been able to install every contemporary amenity. The multiplicity of household gadgets and the American-style living rooms (no longer kitchens) would, apart from the numbers who commute back and forth across the Atlantic, justify the title ÒIrelandÕs little ChicagoÕÕ sometimes given to Arran.

Television:
The seanchas and the animated fireside discussion for which Arran was famous, have now almost completely yielded to the entertainment of the television screen. Everybody in Arran is known by his Christian name and titles are never used, a sign according to la Boyere, of genuine Christianity. Here they speak of Anton Edward and Philly Phil beag (as they do of Owneen Doney Dubh in Meenacross), if you do succeed in discovering the surname you require, it will be typically Donegal, like Boyle or Gallagher, or typically Mayo, like Howard or Lavelle, indicating the affinity between Arran and the West and the common destiny shared is the tatie fields of Scotland. (The Gaelic dialect of Mayo most closely of all dialects, resembles that of Donegal). The two schools---each with a beach for a playground, became the headquarters of the Irish college in July and August. The joyous pandemonium of the ceilies in the hall, of the games upon the beach, when the 200 Gaelic scholars are joined by the children of the island and all other youthful visitors, is a revelation of the happiness that can go with education and is a tribute to that great Gaelic organiser, Peadar î Ceallaigh.

Seven Lakes:
A varied landscape. Rocky headlands like the surface of the moon, green sylvan be flowered slopes that gently meander to the sea. Seven mountain lakes with their rainbow trout. The silver lagoon that is Aphort strand, and the hundred little beaches that you never see till you discover them. It is no wonder that the hotel, the youth hostel, and the boarding houses are always full. As ambitious water scheme due for implementation will undoubtedly lead to a great extension of tourist facilities. What Arran and the islands mean to Ireland can be strikingly witnessed any summerÕs day along the coast from Dungloe to Burtonport. From various vantage points, hundreds of visitors are watching the boats ply in and out, and are gazing wistfully at the houses that lie close to the horizon beyond the sea. Somehow you know that romance is touching all their moods: that in their inner eyes, they are seeing not just the land mass that is there, but some mystic never-never land, some ÔÕMy Brazil of the WestÕÕ, that man always conjures up when he views some distant sea-girt habitation of his fellow man.

ARRANMORE ISLAND

Situated three miles off the west coast of Donegal, Arranmore, with a population of 890 people, is one of the largest inhabited islands off the Irish coast. It is renowned for the friendliness and good humour of itÕs people and the breathtaking views of the Donegal mainland with itÕs archipelago-like coastline.

HOW TO GET THERE
July and August: Boats leave Burtonport every half hour. Rest of year: Departures at 10am and 2pm. Charges: 20 pence return per person. Boats can be chartered for 75 pence. Cost of transporting a car is 150 pence.

DISTANCE TO BURTONPORT
Letterkenny: 40 miles, Dungloe: 5 miles, Donegal: 35 miles, Lifford: 45 miles, Dunfanaghy: 30 miles.

FISHING Game:
Rainbow trout abound in two of the islandÕs lakes. Sea: Cod, Tope, Dog, Gurnard, Mackeral, etc. Boats available.

RECREATION
Numerous sandy beaches with safe bathing. Singing pubs and dance hall cater for night life.

ACCOMMODATION
There is an Irish Tourist Board registered hotel on the island and full board can also be had in some of the houses. There are also a number of houses for letting. The island also has a popular Youth Hostel.

FURTHER INFORMATION Available from the Secretary, Arranmore Development Association.