INIS OIRR, Co. GALWAY, ÉIRE

The weathered limestone pavement of the shore line of Inis Oirr, and the dry stone walls capturing the sparsely greened inland landscape of the Aran Islands ,Co. Galway, offer very rich material for collograph prints.

The images, first worked as printing blocks, seek to capture patterns, structures, colour and movement of the geology carved into by the powerful elemental forces that have shaped the island over hundereds of thousands of years.

The hard limestone of The Burran landscape of Co. Galway, extends beneath the sea, rising again in Galway Bay to form the Aran Islands. Erosion, weather and chemistry have worked over numerous milleniums to make of this remarkable rock a carved and striated limestone pavement.

Narrow but deep slashes, grikes, cut thrugh the almost perfectly smooth upper surfaces of the rock, sometimes running in parallel lines, other times crossing arms to make arrow sharp peninsulas.

The grikes kidnap debris; pebbles and boulders, which are jammed tight within these jagged ravines by the powerful, atlantic tides that wash the coast line. Organic material is collected and produced by the process of erosion and enough tilth is formed to allow small plants to grow within the protection of the grike.
The wreck of MV Plassey sits on the stoney beach of Inis Oirr... The ship was caught in a severe storm and ran aground on Finnis rock, a second storm, a few weeks later, caused the now wrecked ship to be beached on the island in 1960. It shifted again in 1991 and most recently in 2014 by storm Christine.
Debris shed by the limestone shore is polished bu the powerful Atlantic swells in basins, bowls and shallow scrapes within the underyling geology to form nests of rounded pebbles.
Seaweeds, once harvested in great quantities around the island's coast, used as an essential element in the forming of a nutritious medium in which to grow the few crops the island's thin soils are able to support, is still harvested, to a lesser extent perhaps, for fertilisers and a rich food source.