May, 1891. 
THE ARAN ISLANDS. 
107 
were burial places in connection with them, but the grave 
had generally to be excavated in the solid rock, as is the case 
now with interments in the God’s acre of the Protestant 
church at Kilronan. 
Practically there are only two places now used for burial 
in Ara Mor, one at Kilmurvey and the other at St. Eany’s 
grave. The latter is situated in the sand dunes just above 
the sea shore ; and, as these sands are moved about by the 
action of the wind, fragments of coffin boards and whitened 
bones, especially vertebrae and ribs, are constantly found 
littered over the adjoining sands. A similar condition of 
things is also to be seen on the southern island, but at a 
greater distance from the shore. Although the islanders see 
no irreverence in stabling their domestic animals in the 
deserted churches and crunching the bones of their ancestors 
under foot, any attempt to carry away these bones would be 
bitterlv resented. 
The impossibility of erecting permanent memorials of the 
dead above the graves themselves has led to the singular 
custom of erecting these structures along the roadsides 
within the walls of the fields. The monuments are all 
constructed on the type of the Fitzpatrick memorials (Plate 
VII., fig. 13), which are the earliest specimens I could find. 
The inscription on one of them is as follows:— 
Prav for the so 
•/ 
ul of John Fitzp 
atrick who Dye 
d the 8 day of 
February ann 
o D 1709 
On one of these memorials I saw recorded the patriarchal 
age of 104 years. I found one curious instance in which an 
inscription had been cut in a stone lying in the middle of a 
large field and there left in situ. In several places on the 
island, fields on the roadside have been selected for monu¬ 
ments of a less pretentious character, the humblest consist¬ 
ing merely of small cairns of stones (Plate VII., fig. 14). I 
have no doubt that these fields were originally selected from 
some religious association, but of what nature I am ignorant. 
The result of the various immigrations has been the 
production of a race of people of medium height, but 
well built and apparently healthy. The men support 
themselves partly by cultivating the scanty patches where 
this is possible, and there grow excellent potatoes ; by feeding 
a few animals on the herbage growing naturally in the fissures 
and elsewhere, and partly by fishing. Coarse fish is very 
abundant off the shore, and can readily be caught from the 
