What Kidney Beans and the Aran Islands have in Common

I've been MIA this past week because I've been dealing with some unexpected health issues. As you can imagine, I had to deal with them ASAP so that they wouldn't interfere with my trip. Needless to say it's been a harrowing past few days (filled with many doctors visits and a day in the ER) and today I'm finally starting to feel better, so pray to whatever god(s) you pray to or do a rain dance or keep your fingers and toes crossed that I continue to feel better and can go on with my trip as planned. I will be monitoring my symptoms for the next few days, but my doctors have given me the go-ahead, so that is good news!

One of the things the doctors were tossing around was that I may have had a kidney stone. This was not good news, of course, but during all of this I realized that "Aran" comes from the Gaelic "ára" which means "kidney." The Aran Islands may be named this way because of the kidney-like shape of Inishmore, or referring to it as a long ridge, or the back of land. Luckily I do NOT have a kidney stone, but the irony was not lost on me.

Map of Inis mor. Note the kidney shape.

Kidney beans. Because why would I post a picture of actual kidneys?

Regardless, I take comfort in the fact that my dear J. M. Synge dealt with chronic health issues his entire life, and that didn't stop him from going to Aran...