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The Aran Islands are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. The largest island is Inishmore; the middle and second-largest is Inishmaan and the smallest and most eastern is Inisheer. Irish is a spoken language on all three islands, and is the language used naming the islands and their villages and townlands.
Take a short ferry ride to Inis Mor, the largest of the three Aran Islands, and island rich in the language, culture and heritage of Ireland, unique in its geology and archaeology and in its long tradition of gentle hospitality.
Here is a place to sense the spirit of Gaelic Ireland, to touch the past, but with all the comforts and facilities of the present. Aran will take you back to an Ireland of Celts and Early Christians. This is an island of great peace and tranquility, but it is also an island of great fun and activity.
A timeless land in an endless sea, weathered monuments on awesome cliffs, great labyrinths of limestone, meandering walls, patchwork fields, quiet beaches and a welcoming island people, this is Aran in Galway bay on the west coast of Ireland.
Dún Aengus is the most famous of several prehistoric forts on the Aran Islands. It is located on Inishmore at the edge of an approximately 100 metre high cliff.
A popular tourist attraction, Dún Aengus is an important archaeological site that also offers a spectacular view. It is not known when Dún Aengus was built, though it is now thought to date from the Iron Age.T. F. O'Rahilly surmised that it was built in the second century B.C. by the Builg following the Laginian conquest of Connacht. It was probably originally constructed as a circular ringfort several hundred metres from the coast, its present precarious position being the result of centuries of coastal erosion.
Dún Aengus has been called "the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe." The name, meaning "Fort of Aengus", refers to the pre-Christian god of the same name described in Irish mythology.