Qualla: Arranmore

Arranmore: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kanchelskis, Public domain. In 2019, the people of a small Irish island wrote open letters to the United States and Australia. The pitch was simple: come live with us. The island had high-speed internet now, thanks to a new co-working facility opened in partnership with 3 Ireland. The population was falling. There was room. There was time, said the letters, 'time for living.' The island is called Árainn Mhór, or Arranmore in English, five kilometres off the west coast of Donegal, sixty-two percent of its 478 residents speaking Irish daily. Three years later, in 2022, the island became one of the Irish places that took in Ukrainian families fleeing the Russian invasion. The invitation, it turned out, was real.

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Image: Kanchelskis | Public domain

Arranmore: Aran of the O'Donnells

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bonners2, CC BY 3.0. The Irish name was traditionally just Árainn. The adjective mór, meaning large, was added fairly recently to distinguish it from other islands called Aran. It was sometimes called Árainn Uí Dhomhnaill, 'Aran of the O'Donnells,' for the great Gaelic clan whose Donegal territory th...

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Image: Bonners2 | CC BY 3.0

Arranmore: Speaking Irish

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Arranmore is in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and 62% of residents are native Irish speakers, one of the higher proportions anywhere in Ireland. The Ulster Irish spoken here has its own distinct character. Every summer, the island fills with students of all ages from across Ireland who ...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Arranmore: Wired and Wireless

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laura.early, CC BY-SA 4.0. Arranmore was the first offshore Irish island to receive Rural Electrification, back in 1957. It was among the last places in the country to get reliable piped water (1973-75) and an automatic phone exchange (1986). The exchange jumped straight from manual switchboard to ISDN, an...

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Image: Laura.early | CC BY-SA 4.0

Arranmore: Beaver Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MaxPride, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the mid-1800s, a large number of Arranmore residents were evicted from their land during the Famine and its aftermath. Many of them resettled together on Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan. Today, families on Beaver Island still trace their roots to Arranmore. The two isl...

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Image: MaxPride | CC BY-SA 4.0

Arranmore: Severn Class on the Mooring

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laura.early, CC BY-SA 4.0. Emergency cover on an island this remote is its own engineering. The RNLI station at Poolawaddy operates a Severn class lifeboat, the largest the institution has. A helipad at Aphort can land a Sikorsky S-92 from the Irish Coast Guard. The HSE has based an ambulance at the Health...

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Image: Laura.early | CC BY-SA 4.0