At the far end of the Dingle Peninsula, nearly the westernmost tip of Ireland, the seven islands known as the Blaskets stand between you and the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.  The foremost and largest is the Great Blasket (An Blascaod Mor), on which a small island community thrived for centuries, until finally in 1953 they were forced to abandon their traditional way of life and move to the mainland.  Within this isolated community, the traditional Irish language and stories were preserved for generations, and in the early decades of the twentieth century the last generation of Blasket Island Storytellers wrote down their stories.  The resulting books, known as the Blasket Library, comprise some twenty volumes, and offer a window into Irish island life as it was lived in medieval times.  Visiting the Blaskets today is a haunting experience, as all around you see the traces of a vivid life that now exists only in their books.  Our visit to the Great Blasket stands as one of the great moments of our time in Ireland, and many of the students said later that this was the most unforgettable part of their travels in Ireland.  The images and links that follow give some sense of our experience on the Blaskets, although there is truly no substitute for the actual experience of standing on the Great Blasket, looking out over the cliffside, and viewing the endless Atlantic stretching out before you.
 

Images of the Great Blasket	Images of the surrounding islands	Images of W&L students on the Great Blasket