A span of 10,000 years spreads between now and the first possibility of settlement on the island of Eire, then swept clean to bare rock by the weight of ice. Current scholarship of the Dún Aonghasa ruins, Inishmore, County Galway, the Irish Republic place a settlement within the inner of the four dry stone rings after 6,500 years (1,500 BC or 3,500 years ago). By way of scale, the first settlement took about 30 times the duration of the U.S. Constitution ratification through 2025: the last state, Rhode Island, ratified the Constitution 1789.
By 700 BC, 2,700 years ago, a series of upright, closely placed stones, were erected between the second and third rings called a cheval de fries field (“Frisian horses” in English) today, this defensive structure evokes the enormous scale of the struggles around this place of defense.
This is a portion of that field, I believe, taken as Pam and I approach the inner ring entrance, walking a wide path cleared of barriers. Click the photograph for a larger image with caption.
From the commanding location of Dún Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore, the logic of the ancients becomes clear. No better vantage could be found—land unfurling like a hand toward Galway Bay, cottages nestled in green folds, clouds billowing above like sails caught mid-journey. A place of presence. A place of permanence.
Perched high on the cliff’s edge, the fort behind, the Atlantic at the back, the wind carried stories—unwritten, unspoken, but felt in the bones. Below, stone walls divided the island into patterns of memory. Fields outlined in rock, laid long ago by hands familiar with hardship and patience. The sea’s pulse echoed faintly in the distance, as steady and unfathomable as time itself.
No words were needed in that moment. Just the hush of sky and stone. Cottages, bleached bright by limewash—kalsomine, the old name still whispered by some—stood resilient against the elements, each one a witness to generations. Each one seemed to carry a personal reverence, a tenderness carved into the landscape.
Paths led gently inland, where wind slowed and voices from distant homes rose faintly through the open air. Along those paths, the rhythm of island life could be read in hoof prints, scattered wool, and the sharp, clean edges of hand-cut stone. There, among the hedges of limestone and wild grass, the living and the lost felt close.
The cloud cover shifted constantly. Shadows passed like thoughts across the land. Toward the shore, the sky opened wide. A silence filled the lungs, as bracing and deep as the Atlantic itself. Time seemed to slow, the mind slipping into the rhythm of the land.
Limestone pavement, rough beneath the boots, told its own tale of erosion and survival. That the earth here could sustain even the most modest farming seemed improbable. Yet here it was: a testament to stubborn hope and quiet ingenuity. In that quiet, ancient energy rose—something older than the fort, older than language. A pulse shared with the rock and wind.
The fort eventually came back into view—perched as if grown from the cliff itself, curved walls enclosing nothing but air and sky. I perceived no defensive bluster, only presence. And what a view it commanded. On days like this, the clouds formed towering cathedrals overhead, white and gold in the sun. Below, the cottages and fields seemed miniature, perfect, enduring.
The wind played echoes of prayer, lullaby, and laughter mingled with the call of seabirds. The thought came that nothing here was ever truly lost—only layered. Generation upon generation, each leaving some trace: a stone placed just so, a wall mended one final time, a cottage roof patched for another winter.
Here, even the air speaks. It moves gently but insistently, brushing the cheeks and stirring something ancient within the chest. Beneath it, the island breathes: not loudly, not urgently, but with the slow, deep rhythm of the tides.
As the sun dipped slightly westward, light changed across the fields, cottages glowing warm against darkening green. The wind softened. The clouds drifted, still massive but no longer looming. Time to return. A glance back offered one last communion with sky, stone, and silence.
Inishmore, on that day had been absorbed. Understood not with the mind, but with something quieter. Something that listens without need for words.
It was the kind of overcast morning that seems to cradle the island in a blanket of mist, a gentle hush falling over the land as though even the Atlantic held its breath. Pam and I had arrived by ferry at Kilronan, the main settlement on Inishmore (Inis Mór), the largest of the Aran Islands nestled in Galway Bay. There, amid the bustle of arrivals and greetings, we found our driver—a wiry, weather-worn man with a soft brogue and kind eyes—and his horse trap, a simple two-wheeled carriage with room enough for three and the sounds of hooves to accompany our journey.
We set out up Cottage Road, the stone-paved track winding westward from the harbor. The sea fell away behind us as we climbed, a gray shimmer stretching to the hazy outline of Connemara’s mountains on the far side of the bay. Our destination was the dramatic cliffside ringfort of Dún Aonghasa, a place older than memory. But it was the unexpected moments in between—the ones not printed in guidebooks—that linger longest in the mind.
As we rounded a bend flanked by low stone walls, wildflowers blooming defiantly in the cracks, our driver pulled the reins gently and pointed with his crop.
“There,” he said, nodding ahead, “is a fine example of a traditional Aran cottage.”
And there it was—a vision from another time. The thatched roof curved softly like a that blanket itself, straw golden against the brooding sky. The walls were whitewashed to a perfect matte sheen, gleaming in spite of the cloud cover. A crimson door and two window frames punctuated the front façade like punctuation in a poem. Just to its right, set further back on the hill, stood a tiny replica of the same cottage, identical in every feature. I blinked, half believing it was an illusion.
This thatched cottage with matching child’s playhouse is on Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village on the Aran island, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland.
We only stopped briefly—it was a private residence—but the sight of it left a kind of imprint. I turned in the trap seat to keep it in view as long as I could. The cottage was perfectly placed, facing Galway Bay with a commanding view. I imagined the light pouring across the line of mountains, catching the glint of sea and sky.
“There’s a name for that finish,” I said, recalling something I’d read, “whitewash, or lime paint.”
Our driver nodded. “That’s the old way. Made from slaked lime. We’d call it ‘whitening’ when I was a lad.”
Whitewash differs from paint in the most elemental of ways. It becomes part of the stone, absorbed into the very surface. Like a memory of bone. And yet, it requires care. Apply it to a wall not properly cleaned or moistened, and it flakes, pulls away like a broken promise. But done right, it lasts, breathes with the building.
Upon our return, researching “whitewash,” if found this photograph from the Yarloop railway workshops Yarloop, Western Australia. There, on a shelf, where three old boxes sat like relics: DURABLO, WESCO, and CALCIMO. All contained kalsomine—the powdered form of lime paint. CALCIMO promised to “beautify walls and ceilings” and was proudly marked “LIME PROOF.” There was something quietly heroic in that. Lime-proof, as though against time itself.
Looking at the box of Calcimo, a product of the Murabo Company of Australia, I was struck by how far the tradition had traveled. From island cottages in the Atlantic to distant corners of the Southern Hemisphere, the language of whitewash—of simplicity and purity—had touched the world.
We returned by the same road, past that same cottage, the small one still keeping watch beside it like a child beside a parent. And I knew then that the islands hadn’t just given me sights—they had offered stories, silent ones written in thatch and stone, in lime and wind.
Sources for this post: search wikipedia for “White Wash”. White wash photo author: Wikipedia commons user Gnangarra
Join me on a journey through Inishmore, Galway Bay on a horse-drawn carriage. We’ll see a ruined church, horse pasture, and iron age fort, Dun Aengus, with reflections on the word ‘riven.’
A roadside shrine on Cottage Road, Inishmore. The faith brought by the saints has deep roots here.
A large crucifix set with wet stone walls with cut flowers. The walls are the native limestone.
It is a spring (early June) afternoon and there are fern and wildflowers. The white flowers are Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella major).
The existing dry stone wall was interrupted by the shrine. In the distance are dry stone walls around fields, a stone shed, feeding horses and the sea, being Galway Bay, storm clouds with distant rain.
Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.
Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
Imagine yourselves in an open cart exploring the island. Here are the photographs from my Inishmore exploration posts. Enjoy!!
Kilronan bibycle hireView from a horse drawn trap headed down Cottage Road toward the village of Kilronan on a early June day, the island of Inishmore. On the right a stone ditch (wall), at the base the white flowers of Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella saxifraga) (Irish Name: Ainís fhiáin). A steeple with bell and cross just visible. In the distance is the island of Inishmaan, the North Atlantic and Galway Bay. Aran islands, County Galway, Ireland.This ruined church is on the right side as you travel Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland. The distant highland is Inis Mann, across Galway Bay. A curious horse looks over a wrought metal gate set in a dry stacked limestone wall.Riding a horse and trap on Cottage Road from Kilronan village, Inishmore, Aran Islands, Country Galway, irelandThose bicyclists could have been us.This thatched cottage with matching child’s playhouse is on Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village on the Aran island, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland.Roadside daisies on Cottage Road out of Kilronan village, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, IrelandNorth view from Cottage Road overlooks walled fields, karstNorth view from Cottage Road overlooks walled fields, karstAn island cottage among fields along the Galway Bay coast, the twelve pins of Connemara beyond.An island cottage among fields along the Galway Bay coast, the twelve pins of Connemara beyond.We stopped for lunch and a present for my son, a sweather purchased from the woman who knitted it.SONY DSCThe view is looking southwest from the path leading to Dun Aonghasa in springtime. We see here dry stone wall of limestone laid in a pattern suggestive of herringbone, splotches of orange lichen mark the stones. Against the wall is growing a variety of plants. The prominent white flowers are Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella major) (Irish Name: Coll an dromáin). Beneath are leaves of Wild Strawberry (Scientific Name: Fragaria vesca) (Irish Name: Sú talún fiáin) as well as fern and grass. Beyond the wall is karst landscape rising to the ridge. Above the ridge, storm clouds gather. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.This defensive structure called a Cheval de fries field surrounds Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus). This northwest view looks across the field and surrounding defensive walls. It is an early June day and, in the foreground, are colorful wildflowers among the limestone shards and blocks. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.Looking North, Northwest across the slopes below Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus), InishmoreWalled Path to Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) with Island Landscape, InishmoreKarst landscape with Green Field and Clouds, InishmoreInishmore LandscapeKarst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun AonghasaDetail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of SeaAncient Fort Entrance, Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)View east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort walView east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort walRoadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
From the commanding location of Dun Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore island, we can understand why the ancient builders chose this location.
We also see the transition from exposed limestone to the fields built literally from the ground up (see my post “The How of Soil”). For a closer view of island houses see my posts “Settled In” and “Cottage Road Cottage.”
Enjoying travel on a horse trap, a type of carriage, on Inishmore (Inis Mór), the largest Aran Island in Galway Bay we headed up Cottage Road from Kilronan, the main island settlement. It was there we embarked from the Doolin ferry, hired the driver, his horse drawn trap. Our destination an iron age fort, Dun Aengus (Dún Aonghasa, the Irish language name) and the sights along the way.
The feeling of this blurry photograph is too good to let lie. I just kept snapping away from the moving carriage, here we are descending a hill and moving a bit faster, the elevation provides this view of Galway Bay, Connemara and the Twelve Pins beyond.
There’s a gate in the cow field, though some fields with cows were gateless. There is a simple answer to the mystery. At one point our driver stopped by his field and and demonstrated how the wall is pulled down to make an opening, the rocks stacked to make this easy. When the cows are in, the rocks go back up, a matter of 10 minutes or so to make a cow-width passage.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 