Weaving the New Aran

Dara Molloy.

August 1993


There is more Irish spoken now on Inis Mór, Aran, than there was 30 years ago. The local people here have noticed this and are very happy about it. Recently, a strong committee came together, Coiste Glór na nGael, to promote use of the language even further. There is a growing awareness on the island of the value of the language and of other things related to it.

However, the news is not all good. The tourists love to hear the Irish spoken, but they also like to see the thatched cottages and they look for people who are still living the more traditional way of life. The thatched cottages are being replaced by modern bungalows, and the traditional way of life is all but gone.

Since the mid-sixties, Inis Mór has been in turmoil. The changes came very fast. Electricity was introduced and Aer Árann began to fly daily flights to the island. The fishermen benefited from the EC and bought bigger boats. Many of them became wealthy. In the late 80's the tourists discovered Aran and ferry companies mushroomed overnight. Now, in the 90s, well over a thousand tourists a day land on Inis Mór over the summer months.

The Aran people have quickly adapted to all these changes. Private homes have become B&Bs; mini-buses ply over and back from Kilronan to Dun Aengus laden with tourists; bicycle hire centres vie with one another for lucrative business; and shops, cafés, restaurants and pubs are flourishing.

Within the space of 30 years, Aran has experienced a revolution. The traditional way of life has been replaced by a modern, fast-moving culture that is similar in many ways to life on the mainland. The self-reliant lifestyle which produced not only food but clothes, houses, boats and entertainment has been replaced by a money and market economy. Inis Mór now imports most of its food, its building materials and all the other conveniences of modern living.

The island is now at a historic cross-roads. The modern bungalow is side by side with the traditional thatched cottage. Those who have totally embraced the new modern lifestyle live alongside those who remain as much as they can with the old ways. The trend has been to move from the thatched cottage to the modern bungalow. The locals want the modern bungalow but the tourists want the thatched cottage.

Here lies the dilemma. Tourism offers the people of Inis Mór the opportunity of earning an income sufficient for them to build a modern home and live in reasonable material comfort. But the tourists are not coming to see modern homes. One of the main attractions of Inis Mór is the traditional culture and way of life which is fast disappearing.

How can the two opposing desires be reconciled?

If Aran loses its culture and traditional way of life it will lose its soul. What good is it if it gains the whole world, but loses its soul? On the other hand, people on the island do not want to go back to a time when they lived in great hardship and poverty with massive emigration. There is no way back. Everything has changed on the island, most of it irreversible. The way is now forward. The only question ö the best route to take?

On Inis Mór there are many holy wells. People may have worshipped at these wells long before St Enda came to Aran and before St Patrick came to Ireland. But with the coming of Christianity these wells were not closed up. Instead they were Christianised and people continued to worship at them.

At one particular well a small church was built which now has the name Teampall Ciarán. This church was originally built at least as far back as the 8th century ñ the present building has an 8th century door at one entrance. However, over the intervening years it was renovated and added to. It now has along with the 8th century door a 12th century window and a 15th century door.

This small church of St Ciarán holds in its walls a continuous thread of connection, dating back through the various centuries more than a thousand years. If the present generation of people on Aran were to do their own renovations and add a 20th century roof to it, that thread would be added to and would not be broken.

Teampall Ciarán, in Mainistir, Inis Mór, offers the way forward for Aran at the end of the 20th century. The 8th century, 12th century and 15th century were times of great change in Ireland. Yet at these moments of great change, the people of Aran did not knock Teampall Ciarán to build some totally new creation. Instead they held on to the beauty and value they saw in the previous generationsí work, and they added their own creativity, imagination and style to that. What was good in the old was kept, and something new was added.

If Aran were to completely throw out the old, not only would it lose its soul, but the tourists would stop coming. Since the 60s Aran has indeed been throwing out the old as it embraced the salvation offered by modernity. But strangely, that same modernity has brought the waves of tourists to Aran who are now reminding the people not to throw out too much. Now the brakes are being applied and the headlong rush out of the hardship and poverty of the past is slowing down.

There is more Irish spoken on Inis Mór now than there was 30 years ago. This is a sign that the people of Aran are not going to jettison their most valued and precious cultural and spiritual inheritance.

It is too soon to say what the new Aran will look like, but if the pattern of Teampall Ciarán is to be followed, we can expect a weave of exquisite beauty.

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