Innishbofin

On Tuesday, Joy and I took a forty-minute boat ride to the Island of Innishbofin, which is Gaelic for the Island of the White Cow.  It is a small fishing village about five miles across, but covered with some of the most spectacular sights we saw on the trip. 

Joy in a Bike

 We rented bikes to tour the island. I have to say something about my wife's bike riding. I'm an avid cyclist, and love riding, but Joy hasn't been on a bike in twenty years. She was frightened the whole time, but she did well and managed to go from one end of the Island to another.  I salute her willingness to do it. She was a real trooper.

Cromwellian Fort

There's the ruins of a fort there, built by Oliver Cromwell which is more than four hundred and fifty years old.  It still stands prominently overlooking the harbor like something out of a gothic movie. Black rocks stand stacked one upon another,  dark and foreboding, covered with moss and lichen.  Cromwell used the fort to imprison fifty Catholic clergy of Galway when he took over the town in 1651.  The Irish were strongly Catholic, but Cromwell tried to force them into Protestantism by force.  He confiscated the estates of the Catholic noblemen and tore down many monasteries and churches.  This fort stands as a silent reminder of those days.   No wonder the Irish still hate Cromwell.

Innishbofin is a gentle place today.  Dogs, sheep and children run freely.   There is limited vehicular traffic on the single paved road.  Around every hill is another spectacular vista of ocean, stone and grassy meadow.  Seeing places like this,  it is on wonder that the Irish are a nation that produced some of the greatest poets on earth. You would have to be a poet even inadequately explain what you see.

We left and returned to the island via ferry from the fishing village of Cleggen.  There's a monument in this village dedicated to about two dozen fishermen who lost their lives in a storm in 1927. When the storm began to blow they refused to abandon their nets until it was too late. They died with their nets in the water.  Whether it is a monument to the bravery of the rescuers who saved some, the stubbornness of the fishermen, or to their foolishness for not abandoning their nets in a hopeless situations is I suppose a matter of interpretation.   Any way you look at it, it was a great tragedy.

Innishbofin though is such a peaceful place today, it is hard to imagine the hardship the place has endured.  But time heals all wounds, and the place is a monument to peaceful living, and a true reminder of the beauty of God's creation.