There is no wind, and no
definite light. Aranmor seems to sleep upon a mirror, and the hills
of Connemara look so near that I am troubled by the width of the bay
that lies before them, touched this morning with individual
expression one sees sometimes in a lake.
On these rocks, where there is no growth of vegetable or animal
life, all the seasons are the same, and this June day is so full of
autumn that I listen unconsciously for the rustle of dead leaves.
The first group of men are coming out of the chapel, followed by a
crowd of women, who divide at the gate and troop off in different
directions, while the men linger on the road to gossip.
The silence is broken; I can hear far off, as if over water, a faint
murmur of Gaelic.
In the afternoon the sun came out and I was rowed over for a visit
to Kilronan.
As my men were bringing round the curagh to take me off a headland
near the pier, they struck a sunken rock, and came ashore shipping a
quantity of water, They plugged the hole with a piece of sacking
torn from a bag of potatoes they were taking over for the priest,
and we set off with nothing but a piece of torn canvas between us
and the Atlantic.
Every few hundred yards one of the rowers had to stop and bail, but
the hole did not increase.
When we were about half way across the sound we met a curagh coming
towards us with its sails set. After some shouting in Gaelic, I
learned that they had a packet of letters and tobacco for myself. We
sidled up as near as was possible with the roll, and my goods were
thrown to me wet with spray.
After my weeks in Inishmaan, Kilronan seemed an imposing centre of
activity. The half-civilized fishermen of the larger island are
inclined to despise the simplicity of the life here, and some of
them who were standing about when I landed asked me how at all I
passed my time with no decent fishing to be looking at.
I turned in for a moment to talk to the old couple in the hotel, and
then moved on to pay some other visits in the village.
Later in the evening I walked out along the northern road, where I
met many of the natives of the outlying villages, who had come down
to Kilronan for the Holy Day, and were now wandering home in
scattered groups.
The women and girls, when they had no men with them, usually tried
to make fun with me.
'Is it tired you are, stranger?' said one girl.
