Martin Doyle
When you arrive at Ard Mhuire, a pretty B&B overlooking the harbour on Inis Oirr, with three young tearaways, it is a comfort to learn that Brendan Behan once stayed there for six months without being barred.
Behan was one of a long line of artists attracted to the Irish-speaking Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland, by the rich history, primitive way of life and austere beauty, but for him the relaxed licensing laws may have been the clincher.
Many tourists misguidedly treat the islands as a day-trip, and visit only Inis Mór, literally the big island, which even a century ago the playwright J.M.Synge, the islands' most famous chronicler, found too commercialised. He swiftly decamped to Inishmaan, which inspired The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea.
Synge had to do his island-hopping by currach, a precarious canoe-like craft made of tarred canvas that can still be seen upturned on the shore
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