Exploitation and celebration of the heritage of the Irish islands

Stephen A. Royle
School of Geography, Queens University Belfast ABSTRACT
The Irish offshore islands have been losing population for many decades. Their remaining inhabitants face difficulties in competing in most economic sectors against larger scale mainland producers with smaller transport and other costs. Thus islanders have often turned to the service sector to aid their economy. One asset is the islands heritage, often relicts of an Ireland no longer extant in more accessible areas. Some islands have heritages that are cherished but they relate to landmasses now no longer occupied. Should the heritage of the still-populated islands be exploited as a valuable economic resource or should it instead be protected, celebrated but not exposed to the dangers and falseness of overexposure to the tourist gaze? However, the latter strategy might have a damaging economic cost. The article explores this issue in relation to a number of the islands off Irelands west coast. Key index words: islands, heritage, tourism, Ireland.

Introduction A geographical dictionary recently defined heritage as anything inherited from the past (Witherick et al. 2001: 123), but this in itself is a rather neutral definition, for as the entry on heritage goes on to say the term is often associated with tourism. Thus heritage in marketing terms anyway is something from the past that has a positive attribute. There can be a commercial aspect to heritage, which can veer towards exploitation whilst heritage in an unadulterated form might be seen as something just to be celebrated and commemorated. From the same dictionary, heritage tourism is: the marketing of landscapes, particularly their unusual scenic qualities and historic relics (Witherick et al. 2001: 123). This, too, might be seen as somewhat limiting, given its focus on landscape, for many places partially market their heritage in association with culture, such as language, music and the other arts (see, for example, Graham et al., 2000). Ireland has cashed in on its heritage, tourism, including heritage tourism, has been a vital industry for a long time. This is particularly the case in the traditionally less economically advanced western regions, which have also been seen as somehow representing a truer, purer, certainly more rural form of Ireland than the east with its greater contacts with outside influences from Britain and Europe. If the west represents true Irish heritage, even more so must the islands off the north and west coast, still bastions of traditional culture from settlement forms, to agricultural practices, to the survival on many of them of the living use of the Irish language. Island heritage: living and dead Do /should these islands celebrate or exploit their heritage? If the latter, is that a moral concern if such exploitation helps the local economy? This last point is important for heritage
Irish Geography, Volume 36(1), 2003, 23-31.

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is surely better for being a living entity and tourism might be necessary to help sustain such life. In 1841 there were 35,937 people living on 106 islands off Ireland; by 1996 about 9479 lived on the 51 still with populations and quite a number of the still inhabited islands had surrendered their unalloyed insularity to fixed links, such as Achill and Valentia. The majority of Irish islands then had lost their people (e.g. the Copeland Islands, county Down, see Royle, 1994). Whilst there may still be things inherited from the past in terms of, say, field patterns and abandoned houses on the Copelands and other depopulated islands, the living culture and society that developed the agriculture, that built and lived in the houses has gone. The heritage is the preserve of the antiquarians, though of course it can still be marketed. The best example here relates to the heritage of the Blasket Islands, county Kerry. This goes beyond fields and houses, though the islands, especially Great Blasket, do display such relicts. Here it is cultural heritage, especially regarding literature, that is commemorated, from the use in schools of the Irish language autobiographies written by several islanders, to the appearance of the islands on the penultimate design of the Irish 20 note, to their designation as a Natural Heritage Area and a Special Area of Conservation. There is also Ionad an Bhlascid Mhir, the Blasket Heritage Centre, at Dunquin on the mainland overlooking the island. This is a first rate facility, dating from 1993, which in spacious surrounds tells the story of island life and celebrates the three great writers to whom this life gave rise, Thomas OCrohan, Maurice OSullivan and Peig Sayers. The centre also makes mention of other, more minor, figures who recorded their thoughts and experiences. However, the heritage Ionad an Bhlascid Mhir so lovingly and respectfully cherishes is dead. It has been so since 1954 when the last island family left after hanging on a few months following the official evacuation in 1953island life, despite its cultural richness, being unable to provide economic and social support sufficient to sustain a population in the modern era. The payments to enter the centre and profits from its bookshop and caf do not support Blasket Islanders and a living heritage for they and this are no more. The cottages on Great Blasket itself which are visible from the centre and which sheltered and inspired OCrohan, OSullivan and Sayers are abandoned, only that last occupied by Sayers still has a roof. The way of life about which they wrote, and the economy, especially detailed in the depictions by OCrohan (1929) and OSullivan (1933), is gone. Perhaps the final living aspect to the Blasket heritage is to be found in the 2000 book, Hungry for home. Leaving the Blaskets: a journey from the edge of Ireland, by Cole Morton, who traced some of the former Blasket Islanders to tell the story of their life in Ireland and America since abandonment. That event was half a century ago, soon there will be no more extant people who lived on Sayers dreadful rock (1974: 186). The island writers, even the earliest, OCrohan, sensed that their island had no long-term future, and they consciously wrote for posterity: for the like of us will never be again (1929: 244). In fact their works have been studied regarding their contribution towards an understanding of the emigration process from the Irish islands in the first half of the twentieth century (Royle, 1999). Celebration of the Blasket heritage tends towards exploitation at and near the islands themselves. Dingle has its Blasket Craft Centre, a bizarre concept given that the islands have no inhabitants, it is just the exploitation of a familiar name to draw people into what is just another generic Irish crafts outlet. Visits can be taken out to Great Blasket, one can even pitch a tent there, and thus there is a living to be made, at least seasonally, by local boat operators. A similar situation is represented in the heritage centre, The Skellig Experience, on Valentia Island, county Kerry. This facility, operated by Cork-Kerry Tourism since opening

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in 1992, informs the visitor about the two Skellig Islands, 12 km south-west, their sea birds and underwater life, also the story of the lighthouse on Great Skellig. However, it is inspired mainly by the extraordinary saga of the cloistered life of a community of monks who inhabited the unpromising, steep-sided pinnacle of Skellig Michael between the 6th and 12th centuries. This centre then is commemoration of another dead, this time long dead, island community. That it is situated on another island is somehow fitting, for The Skellig Experience brings visitors and their money to support Valentia Island as well as providing some local employment, but otherwise the facility has no particular meaning for Valentia. This exploitation of generic islandness is seen elsewhere, for example with the Aran sweater outlet on Achill Island, county Mayo. However important the legacy in written words and built form from the Skelligs, from the Blaskets and from the hundreds of other abandoned Irish islands, that legacy, it must be of less significance than a living heritage. Thus when in the 1980s people still living on Irish islands began to come together to press for the outside support they all needed, the phrase dont let what happened to the Blaskets happen to us was heard (Royle, 1986). Their campaign led eventually to the islands coming under the oversight of the government Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. This official association of islands with heritage and arts may imply that they are seen as museum pieces. However, from the first there was a policy by the Department to support island life as a lived experience, a living heritage, as demonstrated on its website: The Offshore Islands
Those living on our offshore islands require appropriate levels of infrastructural supports, including access and services. This Department is responsible for promoting the sustainable development of the populated offshore islands in particular and to seek to ensure the provision for islanders of adequate levels of services. The Department continues to work on an ongoing basis to promote and co-ordinate Government policies in relation to the islands. It also encourages island communities, through their development organisations, to work with Government Departments, State agencies and local authorities in developing island infrastructure, industry, agriculture, fishing and tourism. A key policy concern is the provision of an adequate all year round level of access to transport for island communities.

In June 2002 reorganisation of government departments saw the dismemberment of this department and islands now come under the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, but the commitment to support island life still remains. The mission statement of the former department (http://www.pobail.ie/en/Islands/) has been taken on by the new one without change. Despite such official support, depopulation of islands still continues: in the recent past Inishbofin, county Donegal has joined the Blaskets in silence at least in the winter; Dursey Island, county Cork will soon lose its last traditional resident. Some islands, once depopulated, now have holiday homes on them, such as Rutland Island, county Donegal, even Dursey, which, on its last legs as a traditionally populated island, has property owned and seasonally occupied by Germans (Royle, 1999b). This is not true repopulation; the seasonal dwellers in such houses cannot be said to form or be part of a traditional island community.

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The remaining inhabited Irish islands, then, need an economy; one that will provide work and sustenance for the long-term populations thereof; one that will provide sufficient hope for the future for the young people of the islands to choose to remain. Irish islanders have always turned their hands to anything from which a shilling might be gained. Back in the 1820s, from which time the rare survival of 1821 census manuscripts enables the economy of the Aran Islands, county Galway to be recreated, this was certainly the case (Royle, 1983). Aran islanders farmed, fished, sealed, took kelp (seaweed, for iodine production), took material from the beaches (they also smuggled and made illicit spirits, not that the census forms say this). In the modern world, where tourism is the biggest industry, it is entirely natural that Irish islanders should turn to opportunities it provides as an additional means of earning money. What can they market? Their fact of difference (this is the term used by Baum (1997) in connection with the innate romance of islands that helps to attract visitors), their scenery, and, of course, their heritage. To use heritage, to exploit it for tourism as a way to stabilise island population, to retain their young, to provide a living future is perhaps better than retaining traditional purity right up until depopulation. Several of the Irish islands exploit heritage opportunities. There is more to this than just getting across a romantic image of thatched cottages, though this type of marketing does exist. There is a booth selling ferry tickets to the Aran Islands in Salthill, the seaside resort next to Galway city, which is thatched. It thus coveys quite a false, outdated image of the islands where today few people live under thatch. Across the islands there are a number of much more valid and acceptable aspects of heritage to use. One of the most unusual is the painting traditions of Tory Island, county Donegal. This was the location for decades of summer visits from the English painter, Derek Hill (1916-2000), who was awarded honorary citizenship by the Irish State shortly before his death. Hill lived in Church Hill, county Donegal and his residence, Glebe House, is now open to the public, as is the gallery he founded there. Glebe House is full of hundreds of paintings, many of them by notable twentieth century European artists known to Hill and some of whom he entertained at Church Hill. The walls of the reception rooms, bedrooms, hall, landing and staircase display works by Jack Yeats, Annigoni and Paul Henry amongst many others. However, on the walls of the large kitchen are rather different works, from the Tory Primitive School, a still-extant group of artists whose members have included James Dixon and the current King of Tory, Patsy Dan Rogers. These island painters were discovered and encouraged by Hill and they form one of the most significant groups of primitive artists working in Europe. Visitors to Tory which has had from the mid-1990s not only a proper ferry service, but also a small hotel to facilitate tourism are in some cases attracted by the reputation of the painters and, in almost all cases, get opportunities to see and buy works produced on the island. Other islands use their linguistic traditions to bring visitors. Clear Island, county Cork is one of a number to organise Irish language summer schools. Achill Island has its Scoil Acla at Doagh, which was established in 1910 during the Gaelic revival to teach piping, music and local culture. It died out but was revived in 1985 and now attracts people to study music, language, history, geology, archaeology, poetry and writing, social development and arts. This island has also revived old traditions such as yawl racing; when this started there were only three traditional yawls in existence; now there are twenty (though some purists do not consider all the recent boats to be proper yawls). Achill also celebrates and markets some of the heritage associated with its long years of poverty and decline. There are tourist

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signposts to the deserted village of Slievemore on the flanks of the mountain of the same name and its archaeology is part of the remit of the Achill Archaeological Field School. Another part of the islands heritage is St Thomass Church of Ireland and the associated missionary settlement of Dugort. Achill was subject to protestant missionary activity from 1831-1886, led originally by Edward Nangle, at least partly as a result of concern about poverty on the island. The settlement of Dugort and its church maintained by the few protestants who live here as the plaque on the church gate remarks rather plaintively, are part of Achills heritage (McDonald, 1977), are marketed as such and there is accommodation available in Dugort. The case of Inishmore The island that is best known for exploitation of heritage, a process that has rendered the island into little more than a living, interactive museum of itself with islanders as actors is Inishmore, the largest and most accessible of the three Aran Islands. The islands many visitors arrive either by plane in which case they are shuttled immediately by minibus into Kilronan, or they step off one of the many ferries directly at Kilronan. This village is the islands principal central place and does have retail and service outlets of use principally by islanders such as a supermarket, filling station, bank and post office. However, most of its retail outlets are directed largely at the tourist presence. There are many pubs, restaurants and cafs, two substantial bike hire outlets, souvenir shops, bed and breakfasts by the dozen, and three large stores focusing on the sale of Aran sweaters, some actually made on the Aran Islands. This garment does not really have that long a tradition on the islands, having been introduced only in the nineteenth century. However, more long-established local crafts such as the woven belts, crios, and the rawhide heeless shoes, pampooties, are not quite such transferable traditions for urban streetwear off the islands. Inishmore also uses its built heritage for marketing purposes and the actual tourist experience. The heritage comes in several forms. Most spectacular are the dns, the extensive drystone fortifications dating back about 2000 years which are to be found throughout the Aran Islands. Inishmore has five. The most spectacular is Dn Aonghasa with its splendid clifftop site with several sets of defensive walls and the fields of upright limestone blocks, the cheveaux de frise, protecting a central enclosure, one side of which ends on sheer 90m cliffs. This is in tourism terms a honeypot, and most visitors are taken there. They have to walk the last couple of hundred metres which offers some protection to the site, and at the place where they are dropped off a substantial tourist centre has developed with food, souvenirs and, of course, sweaters on sale. Tourists are transported there by the minibuses that greeted them in Kilronan, by the many horses and carriages available to hire or the younger and more energetic cycle. Those on minibus tours of the island also go on to see surviving traditional thatched cottages and, of course, one cannot but help observe on Inishmore the famous drystone walls, which are everywhere on this and the other two Aran Islands. Another marketing opportunity is the heritage associated with Robert Flahertys famous Man of Aran film of 1934 and that is exploited in the name of several tourist outlets such as eating places and bed and breakfasts. Videos of the film can be bought as a souvenir. Are these tourists seeing the real Inishmore? In a sense they are for the buildings, the structures, are real. This is not like Singapores holiday island of Sentosa with its reconstructed Malay village or anything out of the world of Disney. However, the Inishmore they see or at least the one that is pointed out to them has little relevance to the lives of todays islanders

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except that its exploitation provides many of them with their living. Take the houses: certainly there are thatched cottages still. Almost the most westerly house on Inishmore is a traditional thatched cottage and its freshly whitened exterior with its surely non-traditional hanging baskets is duly photographed by most of the tourists who are disgorged from the minibuses. How many of them photographed the far more numerous and thus much more representative characterless modern bungalows which they passed on the long drive to experience the thatched reality; bungalows of a sort that can be and, sadly, are found now all across rural Ireland? Another Inishmore tradition that is not what it was is, agriculture. There are still cattle grazed near the villages and there is a large, modern prefabricated agricultural building operated by the island co-operative. But away from the villages it is clear that most of the fields are no longer in use; the grass ungrazed, the walls in many cases in need of maintenance. In a heritage centre in the heart of the island outdoor exhibit, number 7 on the leaflet handed to the author on his visit, is a patch of potatoes. The leaflet helpfully explains that potatoes were once grown here and formed one of the islands staple foods. To be fair it should be pointed out that another island economic tradition, fishing, is still carried out and fishing boats jostle the ferries at the quayside in Kilronan. There is also a proper, respectful celebration of island heritage for those who care to seek it out in Ionad rann, Arans Heritage Centre. This is a first class, modern museum from 1992, which deals with geology, traditional economy, society, dress, religion, the traditional boat, the curragh, wall-building, landmaking (much productive land was produced by covering bare limestone surfaces with layers of seaweed and sand) and the characteristic roadside monuments and shrines. Ionad rann also celebrates Inishmore authors such as Liam OFlaherty (e.g. 1982), but it shows continuously Man of Aran. The traditional Inishmore is gone. Islanders in the twenty-first century do not want to live in centuries-old stone cottages with thatched roofs, but in modern bungalows with all mod cons. They do not want (or need) to bend over lazy beds of potatoes in pockethandkerchief fields, not when there are easier jobs catering for tourists to provide money to buy potatoes at the supermarket. But Inishmore is still alive; within its approximately 900 people there are sufficient children for three schools with twelve teachers; there is a doctor and two nurses. Local people doubtless talk Irish to themselves in their modern bungalows on the island where their forebears did grow potatoes. If the price for this extant society, with some if not all of its heritage still being lived, is notices advertising cheeseburgers in English and more Spanish than Irish heard in Kilronans busy summer streets, perhaps it is a price worth paying. The contrasting case of Inishmaan Heritage exploitation is only one model of modern Irish island life. There is a contrasting scenario in Inishmores nearest neighbour, Inishmaan. Inishmaan shares a heritage with Inishmore, the landscape is similar with the walls and tiny fields, there are dns, Irish is the first language, and fishing is carried out. However, by contrast, more of the Aran traditions are still actually practised on this island. Inishmaan has always been the least accessible of the three islands. Inishmore is much bigger and thus attracts, as it always has done, the majority of visitors to the archipelago: Aer rann sends about six times as many flights to Inishmore. Inishere, the third Aran island, is close to the county Clare coast and has dedicated ferries from there as well as services from the Galway side. Inishmaan does have tourists of

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course, there are three small hotels as well as bed and breakfasts; there is a bike hire outlet; the island co-operative recently moved into new premises and freed its former accommodation for re-use as a dive centre; a minibus will take visitors around the island. But the trippers join the locals in using the three shops, the restaurant and the pub. From observation agriculture seems to be more important than on Inishmore, the proportion of fields being grazed by cattle is greater, there are actually potatoes still produced for local consumption. There are even patches of rye on the island, grown for its straw used for thatching the traditional cottages. Further, Inishmaan fishers still utilise the curragh. This may be because the island has only quaysides rather than a harbour so the fishers need a boat type that can be taken easily from the water, and these curragh are powered with outboards rather than the traditional bladeless oars, but curragh they are nonetheless. The clearest difference in attitude towards heritage between these two Aran Islands comes from an Inishmaan traditional stone and thatched cottage known as Teach Synge. This is where writer John Millington Synge stayed during his visits to the island from 1898 to 1903. Here he observed and listened to the islanders, started to learn their language, took notes of their stories, material which he would later use in his book, The Aran Islands (1907) and in some of his plays. Synges visits had become part of the Inishmaan tourism experience, Teach Synge has long had a sign; there is a trail to Synges chair, the limestone formation on the coast of the island where he would sit and cogitate. What has changed recently is the way in which Teach Synge is used. It was abandoned as a residence in 1979 but twenty years later was restored by the islands co-operative. Treasa N Fhtharta, who was brought up in the cottage and is the great grand-daughter of Brd and Pidn Mac Donnchadha, the couple with whom Synge stayed and the great-niece of Mirtn Mac Donnchadha, the young man who taught Synge Irish, opened it to the public in 1999. Here for a small charge visitors can hear from her the story of Synge and see where he lived. This is not a moneymaking venture; the income is used to maintain the cottage. One part of the house is being prepared as a bed-sit which will be let in winter for long-stay visitors of an artistic or musical persuasion who wish to experience the tranquillity of the winter island to work without distractions. Further, Treasa N Fhtharta has had erected next to the cottage a traditional building of stone and thatch which she is in the process, with Government help, of turning into a Synge library. Here is true celebration, rather than exploitation of an aspect of Aran heritage. So Inishmaan lives and celebrates its heritage, rather than exploiting it. Perhaps it is lucky to be able to do so; one contributory factor must be the presence of an island factory directly employing seventeen, a large proportion of the workforce on this island of only about 250 people. This makes jumpers, not simply Aran sweaters, but high quality products of innovative designs sold in fashionable outlets in major cities worldwide (the author bought from the factory shop a sleeveless jumper made from alpaca and priced accordingly). Further, a good part of Inishmaans tourism, that using the dive centre, is of the eco-tourism variety which would tend to make less demand on the local environment and population than ordinary trippers. And some of this islands extant traditions, such as the use of the curragh, are predicated not necessarily through choice but through necessity, as explained. Lessons for other islands? Study of the adjacent islands of Inishmaan and Inishmore throws up an interesting contrast to inform the discourse surrounding exploitation versus commemoration of heritage. The Inishmore model is not universally admired. The author has observed mere mention of

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Inishmore bring shudders to islanders on Inishturk, county Mayo, a small island whose economy is still largely predicated upon farming and fishing. However, Inishmores experience is replicated to a lesser extent on other islands such as Achill, Clare, county Mayo, Inishbofin, county Galway and Aranmore, county Donegal. Aranmore is handily positioned to participate in its county of Donegals use as a playground by tourists from Northern Ireland. The pleasant, smooth, short voyage on its car ferry from Burtonport available up to eight times daily does not deter trippers (unlike the less frequent and more challenging crossing of Tory Sound to the island of that name). Aranmore, too, is changing and its native Irish is now confined as the language of the home (though still used in the local schools) to the back of the island, away from the more tourist-dominated mainland side, in a manner reminiscent of what Hindley (1994) observed for Clear Island decades earlier. There has also been considerable return migration to Aranmore in recent years and many large properties have been erected for such people, despite the high cost of building in an island setting. This is another island, the future of which seems secured by ease of access associated with a tourist-based economy. Mention was made earlier of The Skellig Experience heritage centre on Valentia Island. There is another heritage centre here, Valentia Heritage, which features Valentia itself, at Knightstown, the main village at the other end of the island from The Skellig Experience, which is immediately off the bridge. This is a worthy effort affair in a former school building, much of it put together by the late Tessa OConnor. The centre exudes pride about the island but it has not been able to express this pride to professional museum standards. The exhibits are mainly hand-written posters with photographs and other illustrations glued to the boards. There are a number of artefacts, too, relating to geology, communications and island life. The whole affair is charming, but somewhat jumbled and old-fashioned although the centre is developing a new tetrapod trail. Valentia is an island with a surprisingly diverse heritage; as its local history makes clear in its title, Valentia, a different Irish island (OCleirigh, 1992). Its heritage includes major slate quarries; its role as a rescue station, it being the landing place of transatlantic cables; it being a Western Union telegraph office from 1871 to 1966. There is also the more usual farming and fishing as well as some fascinating early tourism relicts such as the Royal Hotel (so named after a visit by Prince Arthur of Connaught in 1869), a fine building in the pretty village of Knightstown. This diverse range of subject matter is not yet properly either celebrated or exploited; instead, rather disappointingly, this islands most prominent tourist and heritage venture celebrates what happened on another island entirely. Finally another set of islands might be brought into play. This is the group known locally as simply, Ceantar na nOilen, the district of the islands. This is an archipelago off county Galway consisting of Lettermore, Gorumna and Lettermullan islands and a number of smaller islands, some of which are connected together and to the mainland by causeway. Some of the outer islands such as Inis Eirc and An Chnapach have lost their populations but there remains traditional habitation on others. The local guidebook makes the points that the islands are part of the Connemara Gaeltacht, are traditional, and lie off the main tourist trail and therefore are still unspoiled and relatively unexplored Why not come and see for yourself? (Beatha, nd :4) One answer might be because by attracting people, there is a risk that these islands will be spoiled, as some regard Inishmore as having been spoiled. This is a conundrum; unspoiled places are getting little money from tourism. And regarding the Irish islands and their migration history, perhaps money from tourism might be necessary to keep any sort of traditional, living heritage on them, even a spoiled one. Perhaps Inishmaan is unique and is

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not an alternative development model to Inishmore and, indeed, there is a leaflet on sale at the Inishmaan Co-operative that that markets the island above all [as] the last sanctuary from the modern world (Chomharchumann Inis Mein, n.d.). Perhaps what might be called from the Cold War days the better red than dead approach is the one to be followed, represented by a sign observed outside the Avondale Guest House on Achill Island, not Ced Mle Filte, rather Wilkommen in Avondale. References
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