The Aran Islands

Description

The Aran Islands is a book by Irish writer John M. Synge, first published in 1907. It relates the author's experiences when he visited the Aran Islands (Inis Mór, Inis Meáin and Inis Óirr) several times on the suggestion of William Butler Yeats. He was advised by Lady Gregory to remove any direct naming of places and to add more folk stories, but he declined to do either because he wanted to create something more realistic, and considered the book his 'first serious piece of work'. Synge's conviction that the islanders' Catholicism concealed remnants of their pagan forebears is communicated in the book. His time spent in the Arans served as the inspiration for the plays that he later penned, depicting the rural life of the Irish.

This book has 50,081 words, 81 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1907.

Production notes: This ebook of The Aran Islands was published by Global Grey in 2018, and updated on the 14th March 2023. The artwork used for the cover is 'Murlough Bay and Fair Head, Coast of Antrim' by Bartholomew Colles Watkins.