Aran Islands

Recently I came across an old copy of J.M. Synge's book 'The Aran islands' on the lovely Friday book market at Spui, Amsterdam. A few years ago I was on the Aran islands with 2 friends. We took knitting classes, to learn the traditional aran knitting. What Synge wrote in 1907 still captures the sense of the islands today.
This is how it begins:
'I am in Aranmor, sitting over a turf fire, listening to a murmur of Gaelic that is rising from a little public-house under my room. The steamer which comes to Aran sails according to the tide, and it was six o'clock this morning when we left the quay of Galway in a dense shroud of mist. A low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the movement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost sight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the rigging, and a small circle of foam. There were few passengers; a couple of men going out with young pigs tied loosely in sacking, three or four young girls who sat in the cabin with their heads completely twisted in their shawls, and a builder, on his way to repair the pier at Kilronan, who walked up and down and talked with me.
In about three hours Aran came in sight. A dreary rock appeared at first sloping up from the sea into the fog; then, as we drew nearer, a coastguard station and the village.'