Cultural inheritance and what it might be, is not generally on the tip of an Inis Oirr / Inisheer finger or tongue, yet it is a thing we both speak and feel each day.
Whether our island heritage shapes us, or we shape it, hardly matters, what matters is how we celebrate it, and invariably, we do so in story, music and a unique dialect – the identity of a warm and vibrant community we both enjoy and perennially foster.
It is a rich heritage of spoken language, ways of the sea, light touch agriculture, poetic sensibility, music and song, sporting rivalry, tourist hospitality and hands-on skills – a heritage even more alive when in creative interaction with all who visit.
Strange as it may sound, we islanders most afford ourselves a reflective glimpse when in full and easy conversation with all we are privileged to welcome.
This of course is nothing new, we are the perpetual inheritors of ever-arriving new cultures that have repeatedly sought out our island shores, over eons of recorded and unrecorded time.
This dynamic heritage is in continuous reshape and can be found in object and idea, which ultimately finds full expression in all we do and say – it might be considered ‘our island world view’.
