50 years of Ireland's western islands

PHOTOGRAPHER John Carlos has always had a strong attachment to Ireland’s Western islands.

Going back to the 1960s when he was a teenager, every summer holiday was spent with his mother and sisters at Kilmurvey on Inis Mór, right at the heart of the Aran Islands.

It was during those carefree days that he first encountered the passion that would eventually become his professional career.

“There were always photographers from Germany, France, the United States and United Kingdom passing through, and one day I asked one of them if he would teach me how to take a photograph.” After a day’s painstaking instruction in framing, composition, balance and lighting by a kindly adult, John ran home to his mother, who asked if he understood everything he had been taught. ‘No, not a thing!’ he admitted. ‘Keep trying,’ said his mother, as she gave him her Kodak Instamatic camera.

Spanning almost 50 years, the collection is not an attempt to define the islands but rather to preserve a memory of the islanders and their homelands.

“The famous American photographer, Paul Strand, once said that ‘stories can be found on our doorsteps’, and having grown up being regaled by my uncle with tales of the islands back in the 1950s and 60s, these places have certainly become a second home to me,” he explained.

“What I wanted to do with these photographs is to celebrate the islanders in their environment, while reflecting on disappearing traditions and values in the face of materialism and pop culture. Some photographs document the end of an era, like the Naomh Éanna boat, while others took 20 years of waiting for perfect conditions such as the signal light tower at the mouth of Inishbofin harbour.”

The book charts the lives of the islanders loading turf, digging potatoes, transporting seaweed, waiting for ferries and waving to the seasonal Gaelgoirí arriving and departing. It witnesses the past and present in a place where ancient currachs and ponies and traps share space with helicopters and Aer Arann planes.

“Currachs are still made there, but only by one man nowadays, and strictly to order,” he says.

The population of these islands has dwindled from 35,000 in the 1800s to fewer than 3,000 today.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, several communities off the western seaboard were displaced from their islands, resulting in a destruction of their culture and identity.

“The book reflects on disappearing traditions and culture in a society increasingly consumed by materialism, information technology and celebrity culture.”

Islanders are hardy people, born with a spirit of perseverance in the face of adversity. Despite the tribulations of living a life frequently devoid of creature comforts, their humanity and dignity allied to an ever-present wit and humour make them unique in John Carlos’s eyes.

“One thing is for sure, you’ll never outwit an islander,” he says. “Regardless of what clever statement you might make, rest assured they’ll trump you easily for wit and verbal dexterity.

“People who are in touch with the land and sea on a daily basis will always be different to those who live in cities and towns, and one thing that time has not changed is their kindness, camaraderie and willingness to accept strangers.”

John recalls one night camping on a deserted island, only to be awoken by a massive and completely unexpected storm.

“As I lay huddled trying to hold my canvas tent together, an islander from a neighbouring island arrived to bring me back to his house. He rowed across a stretch of water in a full Force 10 gale, and thought little of it simply because I was someone who needed help.”

Amongst the more colourful characters profiled in the book is Bridget Dirrane, from Inis Mór, who died in 2003, aged 106. A member of Cumann na mBan, she went on hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail after her arrest while on duty in the Dublin home of a nationalist sympathiser.

Throughout her imprisonment, she infuriated the police at the Bridewell station by dancing and singing in Irish for her fellow inmates. Qualifying as a nurse in the early 1900s, she married an Aran Islander, Ned Dirrane, in Boston, where she joined the Democratic Party and campaigned for John F. Kennedy.

“She was famous for driving a huge Chevrolet Bel Air to her nursing assignments, a wonderful character.”

After Ned died, she returned to Aran and eventually married his brother, Patrick. When he in turn died, she had her two wedding rings bonded together.

* Ireland’s Western Islands: Inishbofin, The Aran Islands, Inishturk, Inishark, Clare & Turbot Islands by John Carlos, Collins Press, €19.99