“The Silent Land”
The aim of this project is to investigate the landscape and culture of the inhabitants living on The Aran Islands. The Aran Islands are located on the west coast of Ireland at the mouth of Galway Bay. The Aran Islands consist of: Inishmore, this being the largest of the three islands followed by Inishmaan and then Inisheer which is the smallest. The Population of the islands is 1200. The majority of which speak Gaelic, but for the most part the inhabitants are also fluent in English. I will focus on the geo-political location of the three islands, which is at the border of Europe. The geographic position of the Aran Islands plays an important part in the economy and lifestyle of the Islands’ inhabitants. In fact as Russell King and John Connell have stated in their book “Small Words, Global Lives, Islands and Migration”, the words ‘Islands’ and ‘Migration’ are always linked together. The phenomenon of emigration is very frequent on islands due to the absence of economic alternatives.