While in Galway we took a day tour, on a bus operated by Wild Atlantic Way Tours, which brought us through a karst landscape capped the Burren to a ferry port in the village of Doolin and onward to Innisheer (above, Inis Oirr in Gaelic), the smallest and nearest of the three Aran Islands. It´s quite a singular place - with barely 350 residents scattered across five tiny settlements, a handful of shops and pubs/restaurants (in one of which we had lunch), and most arrestingly and characteristically, a patchwork of limestone fences. The ruins of the 10th-century St. Caomhán´s Church can be found next to the cemetery, and on its highest hill is the island´s other notable ruins, of O´Brien´s Castle, a tower house built circa 1400. You have to wonder what life is like out here - but it includes no doubt a lot of trips into Galway and beyond, or you´d go crazy.

Read more in my post Our Wonderful Recent Tour of Ireland´s "Greatest Hits."

David Paul Appell