by Peggy Hernon

The wind blew me in the door of Inis Mór Airport this Saturday morning, a cold east wind that sprayed fine sand in ahead of me and fluttered the notices on the bulletin board. It feels like it's been January since 1962 and the wind has been blowing even longer. Coming to work this morning through a dim, windswept landscape, it struck me the island could be a location for a science fiction movie set either in the distant past or the distant future- so old it's new. That, however, does not apply to Inis Mor Airport which is just old. And draughty. And full of ooky little corners that fill up with piles of fine sand when the wind is from the east. The crewmen were already at them with brooms. 

Peggy Hernon has written a wonderful collection of short stories chronicling her experience working with Aer Arann Islands and life in Connemara. Pggy is a member of the Ground Operations staff at Inis Mor Airport. She was born in the Bronx in New York, attended NYU and worked on Wall street for 18 years. She moved  to Inis Mor in 1990 where she married Micheal Hernon, Inis Mor Airport Manager and has been living on the island ever since.

Kate and Peter Faherty with their friend Colin Tom (center), whose parents worked with Flaherty, watch scenes from family life on a battery-powered 9" monitor. Photo by George C. Stoney, Fall 1976

George Stoney is the legendary pioneer of documentary filmmaking and the son of an Aran islander.

An acclaimed professor of film at NYU University, his insightful documentary How the Myth Was Made: A Study of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran  exploded some misconceptions about America's famous filmmaker.

By going back to interview islanders who took part in the orignal documentary he was able to unravel how Flaherty had played fast an loose with the facts to make his tale of the islanders even more heroic and dramatic.

Now an acclaimed professor of film at NYU University. Stoney, was also director of the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change project and is considered to be the father of public access television. He is also the director numerous documentary films including All My Babies and The Uprising of '34.
 See his speech below on the importance of filmmakers working honestly with their subjects.

Stoney, was director of the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change project and is considered to be the father of public access television. He is also the director numerous documentary films including All My Babies and The Uprising of '34.

now read on after the jump

A SEAPLANE company planning to launch a seaplane service on the Shannon, which will take tourists to the Aran Islands, has run into headwinds and unexpected obstacles.

Harbourair Ireland Ltd lodged three planning application before local authorities in Galway and Clare to allow it to land a seaplane in Lough Derg on the Shannon, Galway city docks and the main harbour serving the Aran Island at Inis Mór.
The service is a joint venture with Harbour Air Malta, which will be supplying expertise and the aircraft, a 14-seater single-engine Otter seaplane.

In a letter to the Department of the Environment, Emelyn Heaps of Harbourair Ltd has demanded that the department issue a letter of retraction over its request that Clare County Council seek an environmental study over the application to establish a seaplane on the Shannon.

The Clare dimension has attracted a large number of local objections, prompting director of Harbourair Ireland Ltd Ronan Connolly to say this month: "There has been total overkill on this. We are not planning to land a jumbo jet. We are talking about a nine- to 12-seater seaplane."

The Department of the Environment is demanding that the council seek a comprehensive environmental study into the plan as "birds are likely to be disturbed and possibly injured by the operation of seaplanes in Mountshannon bay".

However, this has prompted a stinging rebuke from Mr Heaps. In the letter, he is demanding a letter of retraction over the demand.

"I strongly suggest that you carry out an in-house investigation of the productivity of your staff and attempt to stop them from wasting other people's money, time and effort, especially those who are trying to develop tourism."

Mr Heaps said the company was requesting a letter of retraction from the department to include an apology to Clare County Council for the inappropriate and unprecedented request for an environmental impact statement (EIS).

He said Harbourair was appalled by the demand for what is "a walkway and jetty at Mountshannon as it is not within the remit of the planning authorities to give planning for a seaplane operation.

"This decision will be made by the Irish Aviation Department and not any planning authority. The EU directive states that an EIS is required for freshwater marinas for 100-berth plus. It is inconceivable that an EIS should be requested for a single pontoon and walkway."

He added: "Shannon Development and Fáilte Ireland have endorsed this innovative tourism project and while we have spent over two years in its creation, with a sizeable investment of our own, the Department of the Environment's reaction to promoting and creating much-needed tourism and jobs in the region is to seek an EIS.

"If they have concerns on the impact a seaplane may have on fauna and bird life, they should take time in doing a little research on seaplane operation worldwide.

"They would have found the following: there is no recorded incident of a single-engine light aircraft being associated with bird kills - this is a limited occurrence that is associated with jet aircraft.

"River cruisers cause far more noise and river pollutants than a seaplane would ever cause, and more birds are killed on Irish roads every day than are killed in a year by aircraft."

On Inis Oírr a dog considers a swim but decides it's a bit on the wild side

Ireland's biggest treasure hunt is apparently here - say the promoters of this online game who tell us that 87 years ago the Clipper MV Rose pulled into Kilronan harbour. Captain O'Connolly's stolen pirate treasure from the caribbean is still unopened, clue ridden memoirs have been discovered, now all you have to do is locate the key and win 10000.00 euros. Find out the fate of Captain O'Connolly and beware of the letters MMXII which will unfold as ...

Hat tip to:
DICK AHLSTROM Irish Times Science Editor

IT HAS happened before - and it could happen again. Ireland's coastline could be struck by a huge tsunami triggered by any one of a number of events.

"Yes we do have the potential for a tsunami because we have been hit in the past," said Prof Mike Williams of NUI Galway.

Don't start counting down the days just yet, he cautions. It will take a large earthquake, underwater landslide or even an asteroid striking the Atlantic before we see the next big one.

Prof Williams will deliver a talk, Irish Tsunami - Myths and Dangers this evening at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, an event planned as part of Science Week.

He became interested in Irish tsunami events when trying to sort out why so many huge boulders lie perched atop cliffs on our coasts and in places like the Aran Islands.

Clearly they had been tossed there by tsunami or storms. After extensive research he decided on an answer. Some were tossed out of the sea in 1839 on the so called "Night of the Big Wind", he said.

More spectacularly, a massive earthquake in the Gulf of Cadiz off Portugal on November 1st, 1755, kicked up a huge wave that pushed into the Atlantic. It rushed up Galway Bay to carry away people and knock down part of the Spanish Arch. The "Lisbon earthquake" had unexpected consequences, Prof Williams said. "It persuaded the king of Portugal to live in a tent for the rest of his life."

A repeat represents the most likely cause of a tsunami today, Prof Williams said, but would be impossible to predict.

Short answer: Steven Spielberg explored Ireland on a spiritual David Whyte tour, costing a not so spiritual $3,300.

"Zigzagging through the country's natural wonders, Spielberg listened to poetry on jagged cliffs of the Aran Islands, soaked up quiet village life while in the Burren, and toured on a souped-up motorized bike. Along with his wife and teenage son, Spielberg enjoyed the country's natural wonders (not just the rain). They listened to poetry on the jagged cliffs of the Aran Islands, soaked up quiet village life at country homes in the Burren, and did walking and cycling tours. The esteemed director rounded out his trip outside of Dublin before returning to work, mind, soul and body refreshed after the trip."

But read on about the much more interesting David Whyte, a poet who grew up in Yorkshire, England. He studied Marine Zoology in Wales and trained as a naturalist in the Galapagos Islands. He has also worked as a naturalist guide, leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in various parts of the world, including treks among the mountains of Nepal. Whyte's poetry reflects a living spirituality and a deep connection to the natural world. He is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, conducting workshops with many American and international companies. David Whyte currently lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

David's tour to the west of Ireland is pitched as a celebration of Ireland's Celtic culture, both traditional and emerging, set around Galway Bay. "It is a unique and intimate experience of Ireland from the inside out," he writes, "Our days are spent in walking pilgrimages into the mountains of Connemara and the Burren."

There are  poetry sessions with David, and an opportunity to spend time with local Irish poet-philosophers, musicians and storytellers.

Wind and tide permitting at Doolin, they visit the Aran Islands and "bicycle to Dun Aengus at the very edge of the ancient Irish world."

David advises that his guests have "both a strong celebrative experience with other participants and an opportunity to spend time alone and meet the locals." The setting on the edge of the village allows for a cohesive community to form as well as a possibility for disappearing into one of the many pubs, cafes or shops on your own.

With the recession coming to an end its time to sign up. Contact Julie by telephone 360.221.1324 or e-mail.

Cost: $3300 (a bargain)

To apply for the trip,  complete the application and health & fitness questionnaire and mail them, together with the $900 deposit, to Julie Quiring, Many Rivers, PO Box 868, Langley, WA 98260

Application
Health & Fitness form
Brochure

Read more about David Whyte in Ireland  here

This is what the Financial Times has to say about Whyte:

Twenty years ago, David Whyte, a Yorkshire-born poet, was invited by a consultant into the world of business. Ever since, he has made it his mission, through corporate speaking tours and seminars, to help businesses harness the insights and metaphors that poetry can offer to broaden their language, improve interaction within the workplace and stir imaginations.

He has worked with corporations from Boeing to Microsoft and organisations from Nasa to Kaiser Permanente.

He begins with poetry (his own and that of Rilke, Wordsworth, Yeats and many others), and then broadens out into conversation and reflection. "I do everything from 45 minutes to three days," he explains. He recites the poems slowly, repeating lines until he is clear that his point has hit home. He does not work in soundbites, but through a scrupulous precision over language, listening and talking to a group until he is able to articulate an uncomfortable and unspoken truth.

"All these organisations are like Shakespearean plays writ large, with the nobles telling their truths from the podium while the gravediggers are telling it like it really is in the bathroom. And every epoch ends with a lot of blood on the floor," he says.

With non-Anglophone audiences, different material comes into play. "When I'm working with German audiences, I will call on my Rilke and Goethe in the original. I was just in Spain, so I was using a lot of Machado and Neruda, as a way of saying that not everything is going to be interpreted through the Anglo-Saxon mind."

The differences are not limited to repertoire. "In Germany they have great difficulty with anything that smacks of cultism or messianic leadership. You can't talk about leadership in its charismatic forms."

But one constant is that poetry is a language for talking about the nature of managers' work. "One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity."

Poetry, for him, is the appropriate tool with which to analyse the conversations that novice managers desperately avoid. "The idea is to get deeply into experiences where they have different images and metaphors to use out of the poetry. A lot of the images will have to do with being lost, with not having the usual bearings, and therefore looking at the world in a different way."

His new book, The Three Marriages*, explores and rejects the notion of work-life balance. Each of us, he says, undertakes three marriages simultaneously: with our partner, with our work and with our self. Trading off the three is fatal. "It's much more accurate to treat these three commitments as three love affairs, in which all the disappointments and reimaginations you have in an ordinary relationship have to take place."

Of the three, he says the hardest is the relationship with oneself because "it's weighted in the mystery of death and our own mortality". Deepening the conversation with oneself is hard. "[The poet] Wallace Stevens - who was a great [company executive] - said, sometimes the truth depends upon a walk around a lake. It's very interesting to ask yourself what the equivalent of that lake is in your life. For some people it's literally switching off the radio in the car on the morning commute, to get a little perspective on what the hell is going on around them."

 *The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self And Relationship, is published by Riverhead.

SAMSO JOURNAL, (It could be Inis meain)

By JOHN TAGLIABUE of The New York Times

SAMSO, Denmark -- The people of this Danish island have seen the future, and it is dim and smells vaguely of straw.

With no traffic lights on the island and few street lights, driving its roads on a cloudless night is like piercing a black cloud. There is one movie theater, few cars and even fewer buses, except for summer, when thousands of tourists multiply the population.

Yet last year, Samso (pronounced SOME-suh) completed a 10-year experiment to see whether it could become energy self-sufficient. The islanders, with generous amounts of aid from mainland Denmark, busily set themselves about erecting wind turbines, installing nonpolluting straw-burning furnaces to heat their sturdy brick houses and placing panels here and there to create electricity from the island's sparse sunshine.

By their own accounts, the islanders have met the goal. For energy experts, the crucial measurement is called energy density, or the amount of energy produced per unit of area, and it should be at least 2 watts for every square meter, or 11 square feet. "We just met it," said Soren Hermansen, the director of the local Energy Academy, a former farmer who is a consultant to the islanders.

In December, when the United Nations-sponsored summit meeting on climate change convenes in Denmark, many of the delegates will be swept out to visit Samso. They will see its successes, but also how high the hurdles are for exporting the model from this little island, a hilly expanse roughly the size of the Bronx.

On a recent visit, Mr. Hermansen recounted, the Egyptian ambassador to Denmark admired all the energy-creating devices the islanders had installed, then asked how many people lived here. When he was told about 4,000, he replied with exasperation, "That's three city blocks in Cairo!" Undaunted, Mr. Hermansen told him, "That's maybe where you should start, not all of Egypt, take one block at a time."

Jorgen Tranberg, 55, agreed. "If there were no straw, we'd have no fuel, but we have straw," he said, sipping coffee on the 250-acre dairy farm where he milks 150 Holsteins. "Everywhere is different," he said. "Norway has waterfalls, we have wind. The cheapest is oil and coal, that's clear." The farmers, he said, used to burn the straw on their fields, polluting the air. Now, they use it to heat their homes.

Counting only the wind turbines on the island, but not those that the islanders have parked offshore in the Kattegat Strait, the island produces just enough electricity for its needs. (With the offshore turbines it can even export some.) However, its heating plants, burning wheat and rye straw grown by its farmers, cover only about 75 percent of the island's heating needs, continuing its reliance on imported oil and gas.

The islanders have been inventive. Mr. Tranberg uses a special pump to extract the heat from his cows' milk, then uses the warmth to heat his house. He has even invested in wind turbines. He purchased one outright for $1.2 million, with a bank loan; it now stands in a row of five just behind his brick farmhouse. He later bought a 50 percent stake in another turbine.

But all that spins is not gold, he soon found out. When a gearbox burned out in one mill three years ago, the repair cost more than $150,000. He did not say how much he makes from selling the electricity.

Energy experts emphasize that it is crucial for the islanders to squeeze energy out of their island without relying heavily on sea-based turbines. Not every region of the world is blessed with an expanse of thousands of miles of ocean at its doorstep.

Please read the full story here

SEÁN KELLYof The Irish Times

ISLANDS FOOTBALL: The All-Islands football tournament pits islands from Inis Meain, Co Galway  to Bere Island, Co Cork, against each other.

ON AN ISLAND off the western seaboard, a football match is being played. A wind that could slice bacon whips in off the Atlantic. A Government Minister, clad in flapping white linesman's coat and carrying matching white flag (flapping harder still), tramps the muddy sideline.

To the watching crowd, the sight is unexceptional. The Minister and stand-in linesman is Éamon Ó Cuív. The crowd are all islanders. Ó Cuív knows his constituency. The crowd know the shirtsleeve-rolling necessities of island life.

In this case, a linesman was needed and the Minister was available. Though doubtless not without political cuteness, Ó Cuív did what was necessary. On islands, the DIY ethic pervades, simply because it must.

It was this spirit that led Donal O'Shea, Clare Island development officer, to found the All-Islands Football Tournament (Féile Peil na nOileán) in 1998, without assistance from the GAA. The event has run annually since - once featuring a member of cabinet moonlighting as a match official - and takes place next Friday to Sunday on this year's host island, Inishmore.

The féile draws hundreds of islanders each year, from Arranmore, flanking Donegal, to the outposts beading the Mayo and Galway coastlines, right down to Bere Island, huddled in west Cork's shadow.

This cordiality - lest the reader mistake fellowship for half-heartedness - does not extend to the field of play. On the pitch, the island brethren are as one only in their mutual desire to defeat the other. Matches are played in an atmosphere of flint and sparks.

"Oh, there is fierce rivalry," says Máirtín Ó hIarnain, an Inishmore native and member of the tournament's organising committee. "It'd be worse than county rivalry. In terms of the three Aran Islands, you obviously don't want to lose to your neighbour. Then there's the Galway-Mayo rivalry between the islands from those counties. It's a friendly rivalry, but it can get intense enough at times."

Behind it all - the huff and puff, the cheers and jeers, each point kicked and every pint sunk - the féile is about identity.

"There is a very strong identity," says O'Shea. "If you ask anyone working on the mainland what their address is, they'll give it as the island. Their home is the island. That's where they play their football. There's a very strong, passionate commitment in the competition, which would surpass the spirit you'd get in normal football on the mainland."

Being at a watery remove from the rest of the nation can hone one's sense of place, Ó hIarnain explains.

"When you're on an island, the level of outside influence is very small. Even on the mainland, in a small parish, you could have people filtering through. But when you're divided by water, it's unique, and it gives you a great sense of loyalty to the place."

Many of those who will don their island's colours live on the mainland, returning as regularly as the vagaries of geography, weather and circumstance will allow.

The All-Irelands are starlit. The All-Islands isn't even floodlit. Teams must often race the gathering dark to complete the programme of matches.

Catch the action 

The 12th annual All-Islands Football Tournament takes place next Friday to Sunday on Inishmore. Teams from eight islands - Arranmore, Inishturk, Inishbofin, Clare Island, Inishmore, Inisheer, Inishmaan and Bere Island - will compete in men's and women's competitions. 

Hundreds of islanders are expected to travel to the tournament and, as such, accommodation on Inishmore is extremely limited. Bearing this in mind, visitors are welcome. Aran Island Ferries sails from Rossaveal, 37km west of Galway city, to Inishmore at 10.30am, 1.30pm and 6.30pm each day during September. A boat departs the island for Rossaveal at 8.15am, noon and 5pm. An adult return ticket costs €25, children travel for €13, while the fare for students and pensioners is €20. www.aranislandferries.com. 

The tournament consists of a round-robin series of matches, commencing at 9am on Saturday and continuing till Saturday evening, with the women's and men's finals played at 11am and noon on Sunday, respectively. 

Read the full story here

By Kernan Andrews

In December 1920, the British army, then fighting the IRA in the Irish War of Independence, carried out an amphibious raid on Inishmore in the Aran Islands.

The islands had been evacuated by the RIC in July 1920, but the British suspected that they were being used by men 'on the run'. On December 19, Inis Mór was raided, resulting in the capture of two shotguns, two revolvers, and 10 IRA officers. One man who tried to escape was shot.

The raid is one of several fascinating incidents featured in William Sheehan's new book Hearts & Mines: The British 5th Division, Ireland, 1920-1922, published by The Collins Press. It contains original photographs and previously unpublished information. Also included is the British view on famous encounters such as the Partry Ambush and the burning of Ballinlough RIC Barracks.

The book is the final volume of a trilogy based on primary sources that includes British Voices (2005) and Fighting For Dublin (2007). According to the author, the book "will provide readers with the British army perspective on events in Ireland from 1919 to 1921".

more here

John Millington Synge ((1871-1909), poète, écrivain et accessoirement musicien, était aussi photographe. Issu de la bourgeoisie protestante irlandaise, il passa une partie de sa vie à voyager pour étudier les arts et la littérature.

En 1897, malade, il décide de vivre entre Paris et Inis Meàn, dans les îles d'Aran. Il y effectue un véritable travail d'ethnologue, sillonnant la campagne avec son appareil-photo, collectant récits et chansons à chacun de ses passages.

En 1907, il publie son livre Les Iles d'Aran, illustré par Jack Butler Yeats. Les photos prises par Synge dans les îles d'Aran entre 1898 et 1902 ne seront rassemblées et publiées qu'en 1971 dans un recueil intitulé My Wallet of Photographs aux éditions Dolmen Press.

en plus

Údarás challenges Patrick Faherty's claim to airstrip land

Thu 10th September 2009

A dispute between Údarás na Gaeltachta and an islander on Inis Meáin over the island's airstrip will be heard next week.

Údarás is moving a motion to have its case against Patrick Faherty heard before Galway Circuit Court on September 14th.

Mr. Faherty made a claim last December to be the legal owner of three small plots of land on the island's airstrip.

However, Údarás is disputing this, claims it's the owner, having bought the land in 1986.

HEROIC EFFORTS by the crew of a Galway hooker to save two brothers whose boat had capsized were praised by a priest at the funeral of a renowned Connemara sailor yesterday.

Fr Peadar Ó Conghaile told hundreds of mourners, who filled not just the church but also the grounds of St Mary's Church in Carna, that the four crewmen should get medals for bravery.

Seán Mac Donncha (67), known locally as Johnny Sheáin Jeaic, lost his life in the accident on Saturday morning as he and his younger brother Josie, went to take their traditional Galway hooker McHugh from Kinvara in the south of the bay to a regatta in Rossaveal. The boat capsized shortly after leaving Kinvara.

Mourners were yesterday told how the crew of Bláth na hÓige , which also left from Kinvara, came to their aid. The four men, Gearóid Ó Cualáin, Máirtín Ó Conghaile, Aonghus Ó Cualáin and Máirtín Ó Ceoinín, managed to rescue Josie but they were unable to save his brother.

"These men, especially Gearóid Ó Cualáin, risked their lives to save others," said Fr Ó Conghaile. The Carna parish priest said that, as in so many other coastal villages, loss at sea was all too frequent. Hundreds of mourners brought the small south Connemara village to a standstill.

St Mary's was packed from early morning and the mourners extended out on to the main road in the village.

They had travelled from the three nearby Aran Islands, Inishbofin and other offshore islands, as well as coastal communities from Cork to Donegal. Others had travelled from the United States where wider family members reside.

"We are all too familiar with loss at sea in these parts, yet there was enormous shock when the news came through on Saturday morning," Fr Ó Conghaile said.

"Johnny was a man who was renowned and respected as a man of the sea, a lover of the Irish language and Irish culture, and a great singer. He is an enormous loss to the community."

Mr Mac Donncha, from Ard West, Carna, is survived by his wife Barbara, daughters Kathy, Maureen, Roisín and Fiona, and son Seán. He was buried in Moyrus cemetery outside Carna.