The Great Inis Oírr Expedition Event Cache

The Location

While Inisheer is the smallest of the main Aran Islands, it has a distinctive charm of its own. With its splendid view of the Cliffs of Moher, the island itself has the true feel of a classical isolated Irish fishing community. Even as you get off the ferry, you'll see a gorgeous white sandy beach and plenty of fishing boats, their nets and fishermen preparing their boats and equipment for a day's work.

The main village is right next to the beach and is enclosed by a small hill with a castle and a fort at the top. Only 3Km x 3Km in size, the entire island is accessible by foot in a single day - however there is also the option of hiring a bike.

One of the most famous locations on the island is the shipwreck of the Plassey, a steam trawler which was ran aground on 8th March 1960. The wreck is probably best known for featuring in the opening title sequence of the television sitcom Father Ted. In early January 2014, Storm Christine shifted the wreck's position on the coast for the first time since 1991 and broke the ship's bow.

The island is an extension of The Burren. The terrain of the island is composed of limestone pavements with crisscrossing cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints".

The island supports arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants side-by-side, due to the unusual environment. Like the Burren, the Aran islands are renowned for their remarkable assemblage of plants and animals. The grikes (crevices) provide moist shelter, thus supporting a wide range of plants including dwarf shrubs. Where the surface of the pavement is shattered into gravel, many of the hardier Arctic or Alpine plants can be found. But when the limestone pavement is covered by a thin layer of soil, patches of grass are seen, interspersed with plants like the gentian and orchids.

The Aran Islands are an official Gaeltacht, meaning that Irish is still today the primary language of the 300 residents. In addition, many school pupils come to the island to learn Irish in an environment where it is a living language. In fact. until towards the end of the 20th century, Irish was the only language spoken by some of the inhabitants.

While the island's official name is Inis Oírr and appears to the non-speaker of the language be to be in Irish, the second component of the name doesn't actually exist in the Irish language! It is believed to be a compromise between the traditional local name Inis Thiar (Rear Island) and the previous official name Inis Oirthir (East Island) and probably came into existence when map makers for the Ordnance Survey, who spoke only English corrupted the original name - something that is quite often also seen in Wales and Scotland for place names from the original tongue too.

The Event

The event will take place in or just outside Tigh Ned's Bar (depending on the weather). To get there, turn right off the pier - the bar is a short walk down the beach to your left. Food is available throughout the day, seafood being their speciality. The event will start at 11am and will last 30 minutes after which we may begin our expedition of the island either as a group or individually.

Getting There

Being an island in the Atlantic Ocean, clearly getting there involves crossing the sea. The most common way (and my recommended way) is to go there by boat (about €20 return for an adult - a little more if you want to combine this with a scenic return journey along the Cliffs of Moher), however it is also possible to fly there with daily flights taking place from and to Connemara airport. The ferry crossing is roughly 30 minutes in length and the flight is about 8 minutes. For commercial reasons, I'm unable to name a single recommended ferry / air company here so I have listed all the ones I could find here and have also indicated the times I will be booking for my own crossing.

In fact, pre-booking as early as possible is strongly recommended and can be done online with most of the operators.

What if the crossing isn't operating on the day?

The crossing to the island is heavily reliant on Atlantic weather conditions and boatmen will not operate the crossing in stormy weather. Should that hapen, I will have arranged for an alternative venue for this event on land closer to the date of the event in a Doolin pub near to the boat jetty.

Other nearby events

This event is one of three nearby events that form the Geocamping weekend. The other events are Geocamping in the Burren on the same evening (open to non campers) and the Inchiquin Lough Litter Liberation CITO event taking place very near to the camping event the following day.