THE ISLANDS OF IRELAND
The Islands of Ireland are the last bastion of an ancient civilisation.
Protected by inhospitable seas and a changeable climate, which prevent them, thank God, from crumbling too quickly of the onslaught of the Celtic Tiger.
First, the digital revolution and the frightening prospect of AI, next they remain full of grace and mystery.
The inhabitants or the habitats of one or another may have their unique characteristics, but they are all cast in the same mould, ancient, graven, among ever present, granite, limestone and swells.
Aboard the majestic schooner ANNA M, it was with my old friend and skipper Joe Aston that I did the voyaging.
I tried to portray human and geophysical aspect as diverse and distinct as possible on the twenty Islands we visited.
The technological novelties of our modern world need to be integrated with the ancestral traditions of these jewels of the ocean.
A challenge reserved for honest and caring jugglers.
I hope they will be inspired and clever enough to preserve such rare individualities.
The Islands of Ireland. first published in the United States of America, by Thames and Hudson inc., New York, 2005.
Published in France under the title: “Iles d'Irlande” by Editions Hoebeke Paris, 2005
