Product Description

Describes a journey around the coast of Aran along the southern cliff-line of the Atlantic, including the Western Brannock Islets, followed by a return around the low-lying northern coast. The author records the archaeology, botany and birdlife, history and folklore of this region.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #805787 in Books
• Published on: 1990-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A Great Sense of Place.
This book takes the reader on a journey around the coast of Arainn - the largest of the Aran Islands off the West coast of Ireland. The level of detail in the work seems daunting at first, but as the book builds you become used to this style. Every headland, inlet and shore has been named and there is often a story or two (or three) to account for each name.
The degree of connection between the landscape and those who named the parts must have been both intense and intimate, and the author succeeds in conveying both the land and the people. The landscape of the island is fragmented into section by the nature of its geology - limestone naturally weathering into blocks along lines of the weakness created when the rock itself was formed. The book itself seems to take a similar structure. The journey around the island is the books underlying geology, which is presented in a sequence of sections, each part of the whole but also distinct from the rest of the work.
We may be losing our understanding of the human connection to landscape and place, but this book is as clear a statement of the power of place as one could wish to read.