From Toronto the the hidden Ireland

INISHMORE, Ireland-There's just one movie theatre on this windswept, rocky island 50 kilometres off the west coast of Ireland. And it shows only one movie.

The theatre is a more of an afterthought, built on the back of Gearoid Browne's Internet café - also the island's only one - in the tiny port town of Kilronan. The movie is Man of Aran, American filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty's stunning 1934 pseudo-documentary about how time has stood still in this isolated place.

The theatre has 24 genuine cinema seats, complete with cup holders, sent by a fellow in Dublin. And Browne starts each of the several 5-euro (about $8 Cdn) daily screenings with an introduction that explains how Flaherty moved here for two years to film in the early 1930s, hiring three locals who he thought best represented these rugged people to play wife, husband and son. As with his 1922 movie, Nanook of the North, Flaherty wanted to capture a vanishing way of life for the world to see.

It's important to Browne, 47, that visitors to Inishmore, or Inis Mór as it's called in the native Irish that is still the first language here, see the controversial movie, praised as a master work of filmmaking even while it is often decryed as a sham.

The pivotal scene of fishermen going out in a traditional canoe-like, flat-bottomed currach to bring down a massive basking shark for its oil to fuel lamps was completely fictionalized, Browne tells the audience of three for the 5 p.m. screening. Nobody had hunted basking sharks for decades; they had to be taught how to harpoon them and Flaherty demanded multiple takes for dramatic scenes.

But the heart-stopping moment when Maggie Dirrane struggles in the pounding sea, weighed down by long skirts, to retrieve a lost fishing net and is saved from being swept away by a man who grabs her by the hair and hauls her back, "that was real."

"It's based on the life here and it's hard here," says Browne. But he laughs when asked if he's obsessed with Man of Aran. "I have a passion for it, but I'm not obssessed."

The movie always prompts lively discussion among residents, most of whom have lived here all their lives. In a way it mirrors the debate over tourism; crucial to Inishmore and smaller sister islands Inis Oírr and Inis Beag. Without the day trippers from Galway who snap up famous Aran sweaters and rides in wooden traps pulled by stocky ponies, or weekenders cozied up in B&Bs in front of peat fires, life would be very tough here.

But tourists demand things like supermarkets, French wines, ATMs and WiFi, snap photos without asking (I met an elderly woman out walking her dog who was near tears after some lads took pictures) and clog the narrow roads with rented bikes, making Inishmore reflect the world they were supposedly seeking to escape.

I'd come here as part of a hiking tour organized by Dublin-based company called Extreme Ireland and after four days climbing challenging mountains and being awed by the stunning scenery of Connemara National Park, we had come to Aran to hike flat roads past patchwork fields marked with dry stone walls.

Accompanied by guide Emily McCullagh, an experienced mountain climber and trekker who had plenty of stories to share about the place, we explored this historic area that is home to hill forts and tiny stone ruins, some dating back 2,500 years. It was a completely different experience from our four days in green Connemara - this was true isolation and a glimpse of what Ireland looked like in the past.

The dry stone walls running all over the land - made without mortar to let the fierce winds pass through - were constructed because farmers had to put the rocks somewhere when they broke them up to clear places where they wanted to make dirt for their fields. That's right: make dirt.

Using seaweed and sand, mixed with whatever dirt they could find in crevasses in the rock, the farmers made soil to grow potatoes and grow grass to graze stock.

Inis Mor is just 14 kilometres long and about 3 kilometres wide, but our first hike of the western loop of the island would take seven hours, with frequent stops for photos and to scratch the heads of sweet-faced donkeys and friendly white horses that often met us at stone walls.

The rugged natural beauty of the island is stunning and when McCullagh led us off the roadway, we felt like we had it to ourselves. Stone fields were unlikely meadows, filled with tenacious wildflowers.

We carefully picked our way across a boulder-filled landscape to end up underneath a massive cliff. Below us, the sea churned into a natural near-perfect rectangle in the rock, dubbed The Worm Hole.

Our climb to Dún Aonghasa stone fort - a series of four semi-circle stone walls built about the time the Egyptians were thinking of putting up pyramids - was rewarded with a spectacular view down sheer 100-metre cliffs.

McCullagh encouraged us to lie flat on the stone and crawl to the edge, hanging our heads over to watch the crashing surf below.

"Feel how warm the rock seems," she said. It was true.

The next day, a heavy mist settled on Inis Mor and we rented bikes (10 euros a day) from one of several places in Kilronan to explore the eastern end of the island on our own.

The fog created a powerful sense of isolation and the road was deserted, the stone walls looking darker in the wet, the only bit of colour the bright green exterior wall of the Tigh Fitz pub.

I explored the funny little aerodrome where daily flights from the mainland touch down and walked along a deserted crescent of white sandy beach. On the way back to town, my thoughts turning to a plate of fried pollock and chips and a pint of Guinness, I stopped to chat with a farmer named Tom about his cow, who was due to have her calf any day now.

He'd never been on a plane, nor lived anywhere but here.

"I've never been away," he mused, using a term I'd last heard in Newfoundland.

"Somebody has to stay and look after things," he added in a gentle voice as he stared across the stone walls and misty field, his Aran woolen cap pulled low against the chill.

Linda Barnard is the Star's movies editor.