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Clodagh Finn: The artist who went to the Aran islands on holiday and stayed eight years

It was seeing Robert Flaherty’s 1934 film 'Man of Aran' that changed the direction of Elizabeth Rivers's life

Elizabeth Rivers illustrated for Frank O’Connor and the Yeats sisters; worked with her dear friend stained-glass artist Evie Hone; helped found the Graphic Studio Dublin, and championed Aran handcrafts through The Country Shop, Muriel Gahan’s famous outlet in the capital city.

Sat, 13 Jun, 2026 - 00:51

Clodagh Finn is a journalist, writer and collector of stories. Her recent book, The Irish in the Resistance, co-authored with John Morgan, shines a light on the forgotten contributions of the Irish who resisted Hitler during WW2.

I love a story of a haunting and this one begins with a conversation by the frozen-food section in Spar on the Aran Islands, followed by the delivery of a fish tub full of forgotten papers.

More documents would later be spirited out of their hiding places — a toolshed in Cornwall and a garage in San Francisco — to make their way to Miriam O’Neal, writer and poet laureate of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who drew on them to write a book and inspire the conference on modernist artist Elizabeth Rivers which is taking place on Inis Mór next week.

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