Bliain ag fás; a year on Inis Meáin.

As of some day last week, I’ve lived a year on Inis Meáin. It’s been a year since the night I came with just a ready-made meal and a change of clothes. A year since I sat in this absolute quiet and thought that maybe this wasn’t such a cracking idea after all. A year since I seriously questioned living here.

The writer Liam Ó Flaithearta felt that the power of the Aran Islands came from the landscape, and it is the landscape certainly that elevates Inis Meáin to divinity. The landscape permeates; it captivates, influences and eventually governs. Its gift is a different perspective on life, on living.

The rhythm I live to here comes from the sea. It reverberates up through the rock and rattles my windows, howls at my gable, floods my room in evening light. It makes me want to stay. I feel at home here.

I expected none of this.

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There were no expectations. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and then I got offered a job that gave me somewhere to go and something to do. The bemusement at my upping sticks and moving to the Aran Islands was often followed by whispered counsel that I could always jack it in if it wasn’t working. But I knew I wouldn’t jack it in, that I’d do the year. All on the assumption that a year would do.

And then the balmy September days came in; days so clear I could see Mount Brandon, and the Twelve Bens lavender in long evenings. I began to swim to the end of the pier, and gaze across to Inis Oírr. I’d pass the bridge at Furbo and the three islands lolling in the distance would summon a smile born in my chest. When lockdown was lifted and the country was mine to wander, I’d find myself itching to return to Inis Meáin within the week.

Unexpected, all of it. Especially the feeling of roots taking hold, like flowers replanted in another garden.

And all quite unexplainable too. I have never quite managed to articulate what is so marvellous about a day clear enough to see Kerry. Or why feeling the vibrations of the boat all the way up in my kitchen delights me so. Or how one could feel so fiercely protective of a place, and only in it a wet week. Or why Inis Mór and Inis Oírr just aren’t as, well, striking.

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Last year I wrote a post in which I wondered what I’d do here, what I might achieve. Whether I’d master the tuiseal ginideach (getting there), read Joyce (nope) or fall in love (still holding out). Back then I didn’t know we’d be islandbound for a significant portion of the year, that the only people leaving would be those with hospital appointments or urgent needs. That it was a good thing I lost the run of myself in Aldi in October, for I wouldn’t darken its door again until January.

But here’s what I did do; I walked an awful lot and swam even more. I got a bike, and the hills made rocks of my thighs. I played the best football I’ve ever played and broke my ankle doing so. I read some things and wrote some other things. I got my shopping in on the boat on a Saturday morning, and treated myself to share-bags of crisps I hadn’t a notion of sharing. I gave up wondering where I stood on religion and/or Mass because whatever God there is, they get their tuppence worth from my reverence of these natural surrounds. I cooked proper fresh food. I took up another instrument, and studied Irish grammar fastidiously (a lot done, more to do). I got fitter. I got stronger, physically stronger. I sat on a lot of walls and had a lot of thoughts. I went from reading three newspapers to reading none. Myself and the daddy longlegs learned to live with each other.

I found a serenity, a great peace. It was in me, but I don’t know if I could have found it in any other place.

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Alas though, all of this is finite. Inis Meáin isn’t my home and I’ll almost certainly have to leave. But perhaps the looming presence of an end is what makes all of this so special to me. My eyes might not be half as open if the whole of my life was here.

The beauty I see every day is fleeting – gone almost by the time my brain registers it. The sea moves, the birds fly, the sun trots on. Like the green underbelly of a wave between the thunderous plumes of blinding white and the waves’ tumbling crash. Brilliant, then gone.

The entirety of the experience of living here is finite too – fleeting even, in the course of a long life. I am led to believe I may want a place of my own some day but that’s not a go-er here. Property, when it comes up for sale, is incredibly expensive and, as an outsider, securing planning permission would be an exhaustive battle. Accommodation for long-term renting is at a premium here, just as it is on most other islands.

I’ve things to start and begin, things to try, experiences to have a crack at. And it’s unlikely I’d get to do them here. Loath as we are to admit it, those of us who come here alone are more than likely only passing through.

But that’s all for another day; later-me can think of such things, another time. Now-me has a donkey in the garden to pet, and a sunset to capture. Flowers to pick, and work to do, a winter to endure and the spring to enjoy. Shopping to order, promises to keep.

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And so, tar éis bliain amháin eile ag fás, sin an méid. I have lived one year in a special place and am looking forward to a second. I came, I saw, I appreciated. I’ve gone pure island-y in wanting to be back as soon as I’ve left. I’ve made a home of sorts here, felt a pull to this rock in the Atlantic, picked up its rhythm. I’ve felt spring, smelled silence and sat faoi dhraíocht ag ceol na farraige[1].

I expected none of that.

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[1] Na Blátha Craige by Liam Ó Flaithearta, poem and English translation here