They were cutting turf. A drizzling rain fell and a mist lay over the Atlantic Ocean. “They’ve cut away all the bogs. There’s not enough to go around,” James Coyne said. Born on the Island of Inishbofin he was out on the moor, in the rain, cutting peat to fuel his winter fires. A little further along, on his small plot of turf, Patrick Joseph Cynnane was working while his dog Tico amused himself waiting for a rabbit to poke out of its hole.
“They call me PJ. Patrick Joseph. I can cut up here. It is common land. Everybody has an area. It is the very last of it now. All cut away,” he offered. Both men, older citizens of this small island off the coast of Connemara in western Ireland. It is a beautiful place of rugged cliffs, broad green pastures, ocean beaches and clear water.
“D'y know the story? Inis Bo Finne means Island of the White Cow. It got its name from a legend. Two fishermen were in a storm and they put into a cove. They saw an old hag holding onto a white cow’s tail. One fisherman went up and touched the woman. She turned to stone. People measured wealth in those days by the number of cows or sheep you had. So one of the fishermen decided to catch the white cow. He grabbed it by the tail and, it, like the old woman, turned to stone. That’s how the island got its name,” Gerry MacCloskey said.