part 8: Ireland again
part 8: Ireland again
the Aran Islands: Inishmore, report from Eric
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[Eric Pease was my downstairs neighbor for years and now owns a place a few blocks away. Also a Navy veteran (helicopter pilot), a fellow Mac enthusiast (now working at Apple), bicyclist, and surfer, we always have plenty to chat about when we bump into each other. Imagine our delight when, as Christine and I were starting to plan this trip, Eric said he’d recently been to the Aran Islands! Here’s his report, verbal and visual. It’s a fun ride.—TF]
Aran Islands. Inishmore. Until recently, these were places I didn't know existed. I had loved the John Sayles film The Secret of Roan Inish but was unaware that islands depicted in the movie were quite real, and even a little magical.
But in 2003, Martin McDonagh's play The Lieutenant of Inishmore opened in London and in 2006 in New York; the buzz about it sparked my interest to see this named place. In the fall of 2008, I was lucky to be sent to Cork on a short business trip; when the business meetings ended after three days, I headed across Ireland by myself in a right-hand drive rental car, in search of the Aran Islands.
My ferry trip to Inishmore was crowded with tourists from all over Europe, and we enjoyed the sunshine as we entered the harbor. Like nearly every other tourist who spends a day on Inishmore, I rented a bicycle so I could see more of the island.
This short video was obtained with one hand on the bar of my rental bike and the other trying vainly to hold the camera steady enough to shoot some of the scenery of Inishmore. About a minute into this long shot, I started down a sizeable hill and started rolling along at a clip a little faster than comfortable with only one hand steering. So when you see me chuckling, some of it is I’m just glad to be still in one piece and happy to have my camera in hand.
Flash forward a year, and I finally get to see Martin McDonagh's brilliant play, at Berkeley Repertory Theater—and I'm astonished to see it revolves around the question of whether someone has killed a cat with his bicycle. Very glad to report that no animals were hurt in the making of this video.
Check out: New York Times review of The Lieutenant of Inishmore (http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/theater/reviews/28inis.html?pagewanted=print).
[From TF: I haven’t seen the play, and I raaaaarely go to the theater, but I took the time to read this review and you should too. Maybe we’ll spot one another in the lobby. Thanks for coaxing us, Eric!]
Thursday, September 24, 2009