Under the pearly light of an Atlantic Ireland summer morning we landed on the low, rocky island of Inis Mor in the outer waters of Galway Bay. One of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor is a nearly flat-topped platform of ancient limestone; it is a seemingly barren, windswept place where a few families have for many hundreds of years scratched a living from the thin soil and the sea, but a closer look reveals a wild beauty, rich with fascinating details. The gray rock, which everywhere crops up through the sparse fields and is piled up into miles upon miles of rough walls, was formed under shallow tropical seas in the Carboniferous Period, around 340 million years ago. As we walked along the narrow lanes we stopped to examine the rocks in the walls and found multitudes of fossils of clams and crinoids and other ancient creatures, reminders of the time when what is now Ireland lay beneath the sea near the equator. Skylarks spiraled singing into the sky and a pair of Choughs flew over, intent on some errand. While some of us toured the island in mini-buses and met with local people along the roads, others walked up to the iron age fort at Dun Aengus. This impressive fortification, built by 500 BC on a site occupied since 1300 BC, is perched on the very western edge of the island, where the highest cliffs drop three hundred feet straight down into the breakers of the Atlantic. In conversation with our historians and archaeologists, we speculated on the motives which might have led these people to expend such effort to construct a fortress in this remote place. Remote the Aran Islands certainly are, but their beauty touched our hearts today; perhaps the inhabitants of two thousand years past felt the same way.
- Daily Expedition Reports
- 28 Jun 2000
From the Caledonian Star in Ireland, 6/28/2000, National Geographic Endeavour
- Aboard the National Geographic Endeavour
- British & Irish Isles
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