[Synge, J.M.] Shaw, Ruth Wills.

J.M.Synge’s Guide to the Aran Islands. Edited by Ruth Wills Shaw. With Photographs and Suggestions for Lodging.

Old Greenwich (Connecticut), The Devin-Adair Company, 1975. 19.7cm x 12.8cm. 123 pages plus Appendix. Original, illustrated softcover. Excellent condition. Unusual and rare publication, using Synge’s Aran Island guide and adding local lodging to the Aran Islands in 1960s Ireland for the american tourist-market.

The Aran Islands of Aranmore, Inishman, and Inishere lie thirty miles from Galway, and so attracted J.M. Synge that he returned to them time and again. He here recounts his travels and encounters on the islands, telling of magic wells, poteen drinkers, fishing expeditions in currachs, and stories told him by the solemn Pat Dirane of islanders fallen victim to the druids and the fairies. Synge developed a great and reciprocated affection for these fine-featured people, for the ungovernable eyes and wild jests of the men, and for the dark beauty of the women, dressed in their heavy scarlet-wool clothes. He faithfully records the pathos and strangeness of the life of the Aran peasantry at the turn of the century. The book is illustrated with fourteen of Synge’s own photographs, depicting rope-making, kelp collecting and drying, threshing, wool-spinning, the horrors of evictions, and many other aspects of island life. ‘I had some photographs to show them that I took here last year’ which were ‘examined with great delight, and every person in them identified.’

• Keywords: Aran-Islands · Catalogue Irish History Five – Local Irish History · Catalogue Irish History Three – From Famine to Free State · Catalogue Irish History Two – Origins of Irish Identity · Irish History · Irish History – Rare
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815968353
• Inventory Number: 32213AB

EUR 78,--