The islands were briefly captured and held by Jacobite privateer Thomas Vaughan in 1693, whose crew plundered Protestant settlements there.

Typical clothing for an Aran man was homespun trousers and waistcoats made of grey or light-brown tweed; for women, a calf-length woven skirt along with a knitted sweater.

[12] The islands' geology is mainly karst limestone, related to the Burren in County Clare (to the east), not the granites of Connemara to the north.

Pre-existing lines of weakness in the rock (vertical joints) contribute to the formation of extensive fissures separated by clints (flat, pavement-like slabs).

Huge boulders up to 50 m (160 ft) above the sea at parts of the west-facing cliffs are an extreme form of storm beach, cast there by waves.

[16] The grikes (crevices) provide moist shelter, thus supporting a wide range of plants including dwarf shrubs.

Notable insects present include butterflies—pearl-bordered fritillary Boloria euphrosyne, brown hairstreak Thecla betulae, marsh fritillary Euphydryas aurinia, and wood white Leptidea sinapis; moths—the burren green Calamia tridens, Irish annulet Odontognophos dumetata, and transparent burnet Zygaena purpuralis; and the hoverfly Doros profuges.

A lacework of ancient stone walls across all three islands (1,600 km or 1,000 mi in all) encloses networks of small fields to contain local livestock.

Many Irish saints had some connection with Aran: St. Brendan was blessed for his voyage there; Jarlath of Tuam, Finnian of Clonard, and St. Columba called it the "Sun of the West".

Many fled to the numerous islands off the west coast of Ireland, where they adapted themselves to the raw climatic conditions, developing a survival system of total self-sufficiency.

Their methods included mixing layers of sand and seaweed on top of rocks to create fertile soil, a technique used to grow potatoes and other vegetables.

[19] Aer Arann Islands operates an air service from Inverin to Inishmore Airport, which has a connecting bus from Galway city.

Since 2000, Áras Éanna Arts Centre, Inisheer, has been welcoming artists in residence, both local and international, to stay and work on the inspirational Aran Islands for periods of one month.

Clíodhna Lyons, born on the islands, is an Irish cartoonist, animator, and printmaker, who has created several comics and 'zines and is now a director for Brown Bag Films.

Sketches by and of Clarke exist from these trips, regarded as formative in his upbringing, as they marked the first occasions in which convalescing off the mainland of Ireland was necessary for the artist.

[citation needed] The cultural and physical history of the islands has made them the object of visits by a variety of writers.

Elizabeth Rivers also moved from London and lived in Aran, where she created two books of art and was herself visited by artists such as Basil Rakoczi.

[citation needed] Visits of this kind include that captured in Robert J. Flaherty's 1934 classic documentary Man of Aran.

The film's depiction of man's courage and repudiation of the intellect appealed to Germany's Nazi party, who noticed it during the Berlin Festival in 1935.

[citation needed] The motivations of these visitors are exemplified by W. B. Yeats' advice to Synge: "Go to the Aran Islands, and find a life that has never been expressed in literature.

They came not necessarily because of the uniquely "Irish" nature of the island community, but simply because the accidents of geography and history conspired to produce a society that some found intriguing or even beguiling, and they wished to participate in it directly.

[citation needed] For these reasons, the Aran Islands were "decoupled" from cultural developments that were at the same time radically changing other parts of Ireland and Western Europe.

Though visitors of this third kind understood that the culture they encountered was intimately connected to that of Ireland, they were not particularly inclined to interpret their experiences as those of "Irishness".

Indeed, because of the difficult conditions they found—dangerous weather, scarce food—they sometimes had little time to investigate the culture in the more detached manner of earlier visitors.

Conventional shoes cannot be worn, so the fishermen wear soft calf-skin moccasins called pampooties, made of goatskin, calfskin, or cowhide.