Arranmore Island (official name: Árainn Mhór , meaning Large Ridge or possibly Plentiful Iron ) [1] is the largest inhabited island in County Donegal, and the second largest in all of Ireland, with a population of 528 in 2006, down from 543 in 2002, and over 600 in 1996. The island is part of the Donegal Gaeltacht. It is also known in English as Aran Island. In Irish the island was traditionally called Árainn the adjective mór (great) was added fairly recently. It was also sometimes called in Irish Árainn Uí Dhomhnaill the "Aran of the O Donnells".

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Location

The island lies 5 km (3 mi) off Burtonport and is served by two ferry services, a conventional ferry that accommodates up to 96 foot passengers and all sizes of vehicles. This journey takes 15 minutes. In 2007, a fast ferry service commenced which can cover the run to the island in 5 minutes. Both services run daily all year. The trip to the island affords spectacular views,^{[by whom?]} passing a number of small islands before crossing a stretch of open Atlantic water.

Habitation

Most of the population lives along the southern and (comparatively sheltered) eastern coast. It has been settled since pre-Celtic times, and the few remaining signs of early settlement include a promontory fort to the south of the island and shell middens dotted along the beaches. Its position near the Atlantic shipping lanes was exploited, with a coastguard station and a lighthouse positioned on the most north-westerly point, and a World War 2 monitoring post set up to look out for U-Boats.

The permanent population is 528, but this rises to well over 1,000 during the summer months. A large proportion of the housing stock are holiday homes, with both native islanders and their descendants, as well as non locals being attracted to the beauty^{[by whom?]} of the island.

Infrastructure/Economy

The island was the first offshore island in the Republic of Ireland to get electricity from the Rural Electrification Scheme in 1957, but was amongst the last places in the country to get universally reliable piped water (in the 1980s) and an automatic phone exchange (in the 1990s). It went directly from a manual switchboard to an ISDN-enabled system, which had to be upgraded within weeks due to massive demand for consumer phone lines, as the previous exchange had been limited to issuing numbers to business ventures only, and only had 47 internal lines. It relies mostly on tourism for its income (fishing was the island's mainstay up to the 1980s but is no longer a significant industry), as well as the traditional Gaeltacht summer schools. In recent years, a local development co-op has encouraged the development of other industries on the island, such as a call centre and teacher training for Irish teachers. The island's many lakes provide excellent^{[by whom?]} rod fishing opportunities.

With no less than six pubs, Arranmore is a pub crawler's dream.^{[by whom?]} Given that there is no permanent Garda Siochana presence on the island, the pubs are usually lax in adhering to closing times, if at all. But during the summer months in last couple of years we now have a regular Garda presence on the island at the weekends.

Arranmore transmitter

The Arranmore Island transmitter is a relay station used by RTÉ Network Limited and Highland Radio to provide coverage to the island and much of The Rosses which are shielded by mountains from the main transmissions. Two towers exist, the smaller of which belongs to Highland, and the significantly larger to RTÉ Networks. The EIRP of the stations transmitted by RTÉ Networks is amongst the highest of any relay station. The site is 125 m above sea level, with the RTÉ antenna standing at 45 metres.

The construction of the RTÉ mast in the 1990s was controversial for a number of reasons,^{[by whom?]} one of them being that the allocated television frequencies (which had been reserved and known for some time) interfered with then-unlicenced relay broadcasts of British television channels in parts of Count Donegal. During construction, the partially constructed mast was felled, with the culprit(s) being unknown. There were also robberies of equipment from the construction site.

A 1 kW transmitter, on 104.0 MHz, has been proposed for the i102-104 radio station which launched in February 2008. Both O2 Ireland and Vodafone Ireland have transmission stations on the RTÉ mast.

The following three television stations and 6 radio services are carried from the site.

• Analogue radio
• *89.6 MHz RTÉ Radio 1 - 3 kW
• *91.8 MHz RTÉ 2fm - 3 kW
• *94.0 MHz Raidió na Gaeltachta - 3 kW
• *95.2 MHz Highland Radio - 500W
• *99.2 MHz RTÉ Lyric FM - 3 kW
• *101.4 MHz Today FM - 3 kW
• Analogue television
• *UHF 39 RTÉ One - 8 kW
• *UHF 42 RTÉ Two - 8 kW
• *UHF 49 TG4 - 8 kW

UHF 45 is allocated to but unused by TV3. 41, 44, 47 and 51 are allocated for Digital terrestrial television but as yet have not been used in DTT trials or for full services, with the islands transmitter being a List B (secondary level of importance) transmission site in the 2007 DTT process documents. It is expected to serve 0.4% of the countries population when configured ^[2]

Other

The island is home to Ireland's only island-based football team, and formerly Donegal's only non-inshore lifeboat service. The Arranmore station, with its Severn class lifeboat, remains the best equipped in the county.

For a visitor, the island has a character distinct from Donegal, partly through its separation from the mainland and partly through its diaspora outside Ireland. The island, in common with many communities at the edge of Europe, has shed people to many parts of the English-speaking world. These are not lost, however, and many return for the summer school holidays, doubling the resident population. The influx of young people during the summer gives rise to an active youth culture.

The result is that a visitor is not conscious of being in the Gaeltacht and football - soccer - is preferred to GAA sports. The island hosts the Arranmore Challenge, an annual soccer competition every June bank holiday weekend where 16 teams compete over 2 days. The competition has increased in popularity every year since it was introduced in 2001 and hosts teams from all over Ireland and Great Britain.

Places and Villages on Arranmore Island

• Aphort
• Ballintra
• Ballard

• Illion
• Leabgarrow
• Leabrannagh
• Pollawaddy
• Scraigatoke
• Torries

See also

• Lighthouses in Ireland
• List of RNLI stations
• Ulster Irish

References

1. Placenames (Ceantair Ghaeltachta) Order 2004. As to the meaning of the name, see Deirdre and Laurence Flanagan, ''Irish Place Names'', Gill & Macmillan, 2002.
2. [1]