Stones of Aran: pilgrimage

'Stone of Aran: Pilgrimmage' is, as Robert Macfarlane says in his introduction, 'one of the msot sustained, intensive and imaginative studies of a place that has ever been carried out.' That place is one of the most mysterious and oldest inhabited landscapes in the world, the islands of Aran off the west coast of Ireland. Dsolate, storm-lashed limestone rocks, the islands have been meticulously cultivated for four thousand years, divided up into tiny plots of land that were worked with hard, unremitting labour. Fishing in the open Atlantic seas provided another, lethally dangerious, living. Th.;Cover; Title Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; INTRODUCTION; TIMESCAPE WITH SIGNPOST; I. SOUTH; BEFORE BEGINNING; THE ARCHITECTURE OF DESTRUCTION; CONNOISSEURS OF WILDERNESS; THIS VALE OF TEARS; OCEAN WALLS AND WINDOWS; LITTLE SEÁN'S BOULDER AND OTHER STONES; LITTLE SEÁN'S BOULDER AND OTHER STONES; PROSPECTIVE; A CLASS DIVISION; SEA-MARKS; SIGNATURES; NINE FATHOMS; DÚCHATHAIR; STYLES OF FLIGHT; WRACK; ARGUMENTS FROM WEAKNESS; THE CLIFFMAN'S KINGDOM; A MARINE CATHEDRAL; SEATS ON THE CLIFFTOP; BRACHIOPODS AND BULLETS; HARBOUR WITHOUT BOATS; THE WORM AND THE ROOT.