Literary Footprints

I recently stumbled upon this interactive map, showing the places that Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye visited in New York.

Walking in Holden's Footsteps, NY Times

Which inspired me to try to map out the places Synge visited on the Aran Islands.

This morning (thanks to the freaky SNOWSTORM in New York today!) I came up with a very rudimentary version of my own Synge map, but this is in no way complete. I'd like to develop this further using a more detailed map in the future. These are places I was able to visit during my own travels (with the exception of Gregory's Cave - I couldn't figure out where that was exactly).

If anyone knows of places to add, please let me know!

Maybe in the future I'll also do a Synge in Wicklow map, since there are so many places he visited in the Wicklow countryside, as well. And the Blaskets, and Kerry, and France, and Germany, and...oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?

** Italish, a project through the publishers Querci and Robertson (they're Italian writers with interest in Ireland, and vice versa), is doing a similar sort of mapping game of Synge and the Aran Islands. It's in Italian!

Hillforts and History

Read my latest post on the Aran Islands Blog!

In this piece I begin to talk about the history of the Aran forts. They are spectacular sites. Synge spent time in one fort on Inishmaan in particular (Dun Conor). I found the one that I loved the best to be Dun Duchathair - the Black Fort - which has never been excavated. The excavations at Dun Aengus have given us some clues as to what life might have been like for the early Aran Islanders. Check out my post to learn more!