It was when Synge was writing in Paris with little success that W.B Yeats told him to go to the Aran Islands and “live as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.” He did so and wrote his classic ‘The Aran Islands’ which he could not find a publisher for until several years later. His most famous and controversial play, ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ premiered in 1907 and it was then that ‘The Aran Islands’ was published. He died two years later of Hodgkin’s disease.
Chicago born film maker Robert Flaherty made ‘Man of Aran’ in 1931 creating a portrait of island life.
