Okay guys it's day three of the trip we are on, the Wild Atlantic Way.
We're about to fly over the ocean to the Aran Islands
It's early morning, it's a little bit overcast but the Aran islands are supposedly gorgeous and we have a lot of really cool stuff that's gonna happen later today, so…
(Marko) We'll see you there and we'll tell you more when we get there. (Alex) Let's hop on this plane, we're late.
Oh sweet, I'm driving this guy! Are you guys ready?
Yeah right, we're getting out.
Cliffs of Moher
How was that?
That was amazing! Just flying over the Cliffs of Moher, it's so stunning from the ground but from the air… even better.
This island is actually called Inis Mór.
It's the largest of the three.
"Mór" means big, so like the Cliffs of Moher. So, "big cliffs", makes sense, they were pretty large.
It's an island off an island, so it's gonna be a really interesting microcosm of Irish culture.
So, we're gonna join up with Cyril and his son Fionn
We're gonna start off on a cart with a donkey pulling us. The old school way of travelling.
Horse and carriage, let's say.
I think it's a donkey, though.
Might be a donkey, whatever.
We're gona go check out some beautiful places on the coast.
I got a new whip!
How many people here speak Irish? Is the majority fluent in Irish?
Yeah the majority would be.
So, what was it like growing up here?
We were pretty wild as children.
Most of the time you can do whatever you want, really.
Well, we're driving a horse down the road right now. That's some freedom right there.
I figured that this is like the perfect place to take a morning jog.
And we're cruising at a pretty nice slow speed, so I'm just gonna pop off the back and jog for like a kilometer.
Get after it, Rocky!
Well, that was a first! Super fun horse and buggy
And I even snuck in a little run.
So, now we're in the main port of the island and we're meeting up with Cyril and he's gonna show us around. Where are we going today?
Okay, we're going up to the highest point of the island at the moment.
We're gonna go out to Poll na bPeist after that. That is the worm hole where they do the Red Bull cliff diving.
Some old forts, an early church…
Early Christian churches, we're gonna try and do it all.
So, we just go the top of Inis Mór, the highest point in the island.
And it's pretty incredible, there are monuments from so many different periods of time.
Like this lighthouse is from the late 1800s, this was built in the late 1700s
That's from the Napoleonic Wars.
And then that guy over there is from Bronze Age.
It's from 800 BC, and this is kind of when those things were… these were round fortresses. There are 450 of them in the surrounding counties and here.
And that's because this was connected to the main land at one point and these were like the northern borders of the southern tribes of Ireland.
So this was like a border between waring tribes. It just goes to show how many layers of civilization are under our feet right here.
Whoa, this is crazy. this could be from the ocean floor, a couple of hundred thousands years ago.
But we're not done yet, we're gonna head over to a place called The Worm
It's well known, it's a big cliff jump, because Red Bull actually had one of the cliff jumping world championships here.
So, we're gonna go put our boardies on and hop in the ocean.
This village is awesome, all these houses here… some of them are abandoned,
but you can really get a sense of what this village would have been like when there was more people living here.
There's like these big slabs of rock here going down towards the ocean.
Makes you wonder how they were even able to grow crops
The first thing you needed to do, of course, when you were gonna make a piece of land was you'd take the top layer off.
Then you needed to fill all these holes up, so all the debris that was left over you'd fill the holes with.
Then you'd get a heavy clay and you'd place it on top of that
and then you layer, you make a compost of sand and seaweed and layer it sand - seaweed - sand - seaweed.
You turn it from that into that.
Well, this place is weird and awesome
I don't think I've ever been in a landscape quite like this.
It's all limestone that's been shaped and formed by the ocean.
Twenty meter waves smashing in here and lodging fat boulders like these two in underneath this cliff.
You can imagine the force.
We've travelled by plane, by horse and cart, by car, and now we've been jumping over rocks on foot.
And we've arrived here. The last bit we travel by jumping through air.
It's a serious cliff jump, not gonna lie.
The Red Bull guys go from way up here, but the tide's actually pretty low right now so we're gonna go from one the lower areas.
But it's incredible how it's just almost perfectly square.
Yeah it's like a swimming pool.
But is a swimming pool that is chock-a-block full of jelly fish right now.
There's so many jelly fish in there.
One last disclaimer, if you are gonna jump, you do it at your own risk and make sure the water is calm. The conditions right now are perfect.
If it's stormy weather don't do it. The Vagabrothers wish you the best!
[excited screaming]
Well that was nice and exhilarating.
It's time to get out of here and keep exploring the island!
Insane… 9th century monastery and the monks who came here were Coptic Christians from Egypt.
How did Christianity come to these islands and Ireland?
Well, they probably travelled up from the Mediterranean along Spain, Portugal into France.
You were isolating yourself almost like a Buddhist monastery or Buddhist retreat.
You stayed for a duration of seven years and after seven years you went out into the broader world and you spread Christianity
and during the fall of the Roman Empire, the Irish, because we weren't influenced by Rome, our Christian values didn't change.
So, we kept writing, we kept education and we actually respread that back into Europe.
The whole idea was to bring Christianity to Europe.
Seriously though, is that not mind boggling?
For me, the fact that monks from the Middle East travelled all the way here, to pretty much the furthest possible corner of Europe over a thousand years ago.
That must have been quite the journey.
It's interesting that some of the first tourists here were pilgrims who'd spend a day and a half walking around the island barefoot
and just kind of finding themselves as they find the island.
And so we're realizing that we've got a few more hours left but we might instead of try and see everything, we might just try and soak it up for the last bit of time.
So, I think maybe some lunch.
(Alex) And maybe a pint. (Marko) And maybe a pint. (Alex) Let's go!
[speaking Irish Gaelic]
Thank you so much for showing us around today.
You're welcome. It's been a cool day.
Slainte!
[speaking Irish Gaelic]
Cheers boys!
Right guys, well, unfortunately, our time here on the Aran islands is over.
We're about to hop a flight back to Connemara.
So we're gonna go on the mainland and visit a guy who's bringing back traditional Irish basket making, basket weaving, in the beautiful village of Spiddal.
Let's do it!
Nice to meet you Alex!
Hello!
How are we gettin' on? Ciaran.
I'm Ciaran Hogan and I'm a basket maker, willow basket maker.
It would have been very much a rural craft, so you would have had a lot of basket makers in the village.
Now I'd say there are about 20 full time basket makers in Ireland. And back in the 50s, 60s it would have been maybe two or three per village.
People are probalby appreciating it a lot more currently.
It's probably also to do with the whole thing the way globalization is going and everything being made in China
and the way you lose your jobs in your country
that people are kind of looking at it a little bit more that making it yourself has a bit more value to it.
We're going to Galway right now and are gonna have dinner at Kai Restaurant.
Kai actually means food in Maori.
Maori.
So maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is a restaurant?
We've been in airplanes, cliff jumping, a horse drawn carriage, and now we have a feast like this.
I really don't think today could get very much better.
I'm diggin' the Wild Atlantic Way and I'm gonna have some wild Atlantic monkfish.
Well, we just had a dank dinner.
(both) So good!
But we're not done yet. What are we doing now?
So, we're going right here to The Crane which is a live music venue
Galway is known for its live music, especially traditional music, so we're going in
Hey look, "Traditional Irish Music Pub of the Year"!
[singing "Whiskey in the Jar"]
Well, that was awesome, great live music session and we're gonna leave you with a song right after this.
But if you liked the video make sure you give it a thumbs up, share it with your friends and subscribe to Vagabrothers for more travel videos every week.
(Alex) Also stay tuned because this adventure in Ireland is nowhere near finished. (Marko) No not at all.
We got a bunch of cool stuff coming your way. In the meantime: stay curious, keep exploring and we'll see all of you Vagabuddies on the road!
Peace!
[ singing "Eileen Oge"]