The Blasket Islands

I have been reading about life on the Blasket Islands during the mid to late 19th century as related by Tomas O’Crohan in “The Islandman”. The island population scraped a precarious living through fishing, livestock rearing and marine salvage, trading their surpluses during good years to people on the mainland. On a clear day, the Blaskets are visible on the horizon from our back door here. I was keen to take a closer look at the islands and HL wanted to see Dingle, so off we set fairly early this morning for a trip to the next peninsula to the north. I drove the scenic route via the Connor Pass with fantastic views over mountainside and valley.
Mid morning found us in the pretty and lively town of Dingle where we went for a wander around the main streets and harbour and found a really good coffee stall.
Unfortunately the Blasket ferry isn’t running at present, the weather being too wild but there was plenty around to see in the surrounding countryside, notably a beautiful ruined church at Kilmalkeda and an ancient oratory nearby. This region is part of the Gaeltacht and many of the tombstones, shopfronts and signs out at the western end of the Dingle peninsula are in Gaelic only.
Out towards Dunquin, we stopped in a layby where there was an excellent view of the Blaskets across the sound, and chanced upon an Irish guy, Sean, with a van and a flute who was setting up a little stall there to play and sell his music. He has an album called Blasket Sounds and played us a slow air from the island of Inishvickillane while a herring gull sat next to him and watched on. It turns out that he was from Cahersiveen and used to swim in the harbour just below the cottage here when he was younger. We came home with a copy of his CD and drove home along the coast to the accompaniment of lyrical strains of flute, guitar and uillean pipes from the car stereo.