Clare Island: Elke Heidenreich explores Ireland

Ireland, it is said, is the green island. It's not just saying that's right. If you travel by car from Dublin across the country to the west coast, green is the dominant color, but when we translate to the small island of Clare Iceland, everything is first deep gray: Such a downpour, so dense, so painfully pattering, I have rarely experienced. The crossing with the ferry "Pirate Queen" takes but only 20 minutes. We, photographer Tom Krausz and myself, are wet to the bone when we stand on the wharf with soaked travel bags, and we feel enormously bleak. But there is already waiting for someone who knows we are coming, invites us into his car and drives the few steps to our accommodation right on the harbor. The small house is a Bed & Breakfast called "Granuaile House" after the famous pirate who lived here and whose trail we are on. My room overlooks the ruin of the castle where Granuaile was born in 1530. But I'm not interested now, first get dry, first drink something hot and eat.

Clare Island belongs to the wild west

Clare Island is an island off the west coast of County Mayo in Ireland's Wild West. It is about eight kilometers long, five kilometers wide and has a 460 meter high mountain. Today there are still 130 people on Clare Island ("two on the way"), about 3,000 sheep, a few cows, horses, donkeys, and there are two pubs. Only one hotel, but people rent rooms, and there are a total of seven bed and breakfast pensions. Chris O'Grady, born here and owner of the ferry "Pirate Queen", says that in winter it is sometimes like in Switzerland - snow on gentle hills, wonderful for skiing. But beware: It is not easy in any weather, ferry to ferry. The waves could be up to 15 meters high here.

Birthplace of Granuaile

What's up on Clare Island? Donal O'Shea needs to know, because he is responsible for the holiday guests. In summer, about 15,000 tourists, mostly for one day, would come for swimming and hiking. In the middle of June there will be a big ChroniquesDuVasteMonde single meeting on the island: 40 men will meet 40 women, one drinks, dances, talks, and maybe more will come out of it. And otherwise: the pirate! Grainne Ní Mháille is her Irish name, for the English she is Grace O'Malley. In the beautiful Cistercian abbey from the 14th century, whose centenary paintings of animals are still to be seen, is her tombstone with the crest of her family: "Terra marique potens", powerful on land and at sea, and in the cemetery high above the sea we always read the name O'Malley. The sky is wide and blue with fast clouds, the meadows are green, hilly and full of stones, criss-crossed by beautiful natural stone walls, and one imagines a courageous young girl who looks from the high cliffs into the roaring Atlantic and wants freedom. Today, it is said, often unhappy women come to the island and throw the wedding rings as the first or last act of separation from the lighthouse up into the sea.

Granuaile, Clare Island

Granuailes father was a clan chief and sailor, the brothers proved unsuitable for the seafaring, but the daughter cut off the long curls, put on men's clothes and went out to the sea. That was over when she was 16 and married to Donal O'Flaherty, who gave birth to three children. And when Donal fell in battle between warring clans, it was she who avenged him through battle. Later, she rallied 200 men, sailed again, hijacked Spanish ships, bypassed English customs, and tried to sink the hated Englishmen as much as possible. She married a second time, got a fourth child, left her second husband and requisitioned his castles, ended up in prison for piracy, escaped by escaping, and courageously sailed up the Thames for an audience with Queen Elizabeth I in London to release her to effect their captive son.

Lighthouse, west coast

The Queen is said to have met her like a queen - one on water - another, one on land. The Virgin Queen white powdered in magnificent robes, the Pirate Queen tanned in a woolen cloak. Almost the same age, both. Incidentally, both died in the same year, 1603. The conversation took place in Latin, Granuaile had learned from the priests on her island. Here, two powerful women talked in a men's world at eye level and understood each other. The legend tells of a silk, embroidered handkerchief that Elizabeth I was supposed to have handed to the buccaneer, who was whistling for a sailor and threw it into the fire. The queen was certainly "not amused", but very impressed.Granuaile's captive son was freed after this audience, she herself had a safe passage, and since then has not captured any English ships.

Clare Island does not seem to have changed much since then. We walk for hours, over the hills, along lonely narrow, winding roads, no human soul meets us, now and then there is a house in the hills or on the road. What a rest! On the horizon the land line, in the sea more islands? Inishturk, for example, there are even fewer people living, and slowly it is becoming a problem with the schoolchildren. On Clare Island there is only one elementary school, for everything else you have to go to the countryside. The last priest has been away since 2002, now one of them regularly tours the islands.

Cemetery, school children

The children's choir is directed by a German, who decades ago after reading the "Ulysses" of James Joyce stranded here and looks Irish than all the Irish and booming calls to us: "Are you the Germans?" Everything gets around quickly, and in the evening in the Guinness pub, George, as they call Jörg, tells us about family disputes - even today: fractious clans, as then, at the time of Granuailes. And this on such a small, idyllic island. No, idyllic is wrong. We are in the middle of the Atlantic, it is rough and rough here, in winter the storms are so strong that the old people can not leave the houses for days to shop in the only shop. You will be provided with. But now, in early summer, everything is soft and flower-strewn, broom, yellow lilies, buttercups, smells from almost every point, hears, you can see the sea. It is a steep stone coast with two, three sandy coves, which are also great for swimming. You can cycle - on gravel roads, eyes and down, you can rent the school bus and get around from Bridget for a bit of money like in a taxi, but it's best to walk. We walk for a whole day, buy something to eat and drink in the shop and enjoy the vastness, the air, the sun, the sheep, the donkeys, the total seclusion of the whole world. At the infinite view over the wild Atlantic. And, of course: In the evening there is always reward beer in the pub. Here hangs a photo with the Rolling Stones. Supposedly they were also here, completely private.

Jörg Zengel aka George

Around the middle of the 19th century raged a terrible famine in Ireland, there are everywhere on the island exhibitions for "famine", and also on Clare Iceland then reduced the population from 1600 to 800, the poor lived in Erdhöhlen. Ireland has never recovered completely from those who did not die trying to emigrate. Beautiful stained glass windows in the old church, among other things with my favorite Saint, the good Antonius, who finds lost things and repairs broken hearts, were donated by rich emigrants.

On the return trip, we stop in small Louisburgh, where there is a lovingly-stocked Granuaile Museum, and in the magnificent Westport House, where descendants still live. It is built on the rubble of one of its former castles, the dungeons are still to visit, otherwise the house is light and bright and very magnificently furnished. We are encouraged to marry here or to celebrate a party - it is rented. Granuaile stands as a bronze figure in the park. A nice young woman from the Irish Tourist Board takes us around, and what's her name? Gráinne, that means Grania and comes from Granuaile. She points to the statue and says: "Women who behave rarely make history!" Women who are good, rarely write history ...

In the evening we are still sitting in a pub in Newport, and what's his name? The Grainne Uaile ?. There are so many spellings, but it is always meant,? Uaile? means bald, after cutting off the mane. We listen to Irish Irish folk music for Irish Whiskey before heading to the magnificent rooms of "Newport House". fall into the four-poster beds. I have to think of our last encounter with Donal O? Shea before falling asleep. I asked him if there were dolphins here. As shot from the gun he said: "Yes, five? ? as if he knew her individually. He also said with a wink that sometimes Granuaile would go through the bay at night. After five Guinness, sláinte! (that means Cheers and speaks about Slontscher), one can easily believe that.

And I asked him again after the story with the wedding rings, which are allegedly thrown from the lighthouse into the sea. He thought for a moment and then said: "Not at the moment. The price of gold is too high.

Get to Clare Island

From five German airports with Aer Lingus, www.aerlingus.com, to Dublin. Then best with the rental car (left-hand traffic!), Z. B. von Hertz, further west. Departure of Ferries from Roonagh Pier near Louisburgh in County Mayo: www.clareislandferry.com, www.omalleyferries.com).