John Millington Synge, later author of The Playboy of the Western World, started out writing competent but prosaic works. Then he met with W.B. Yeats, who told him to go to the Aran Islands to seek inspiration. Once he followed this advice, Synge started immediately writing some of the finest dramas ever written about the traditional people of Ireland, Riders to the Sea and The Well of the Saints.
The decision to go to these remote islands off the western coast of Ireland was not an easy one. Synge came from a long line of Irish Protestants who had been landlords for many years in the west country. His family made their great wealth by managing their diverse parcels of land, which included dispossessing many of their less productive tenants. This caused great rancor and was one of the underlying causes of the Easter Rebellion. For Synge, a known landlord's son, to even appear in the west country was a provocation to violence. Nonetheless, he went.
For me the trip to Aran was also a journey in search of inspiration. I knew the history behind the great works of literature moved me, and that I wanted to explore this territory much more deeply, but then there was this matter of making a living and getting on in life. I went to Aran for three months with a small grant of $600 in my pocket, to see if Synge's journey could inspire me as well.
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