Inis-meainTEACH SYNGE Teach Synge (Synge's house) wasn't his at all, he stayed in this house when he visited the islands and the descendents of his hosts have kept the place in remarkable condition. I supose it's more of a monument to a great writer and a memory frozen in time of how people lived at the dawn of the 20th century than it is a museum. The thatch on the roof is done the local way, piled on, covered with a large fishing net and tied to pegs set into the stone wall. The cottege is whitewashed and immaculate. There's a small cover charge to go in but it's worth it just to see the timelessness of the place which has been preserved by the family. In any production of the PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD the local people are always represented as squalid and unwashed. The fact that Peigí opens the play ordering the material for two dresses and then springs to her feet to sweep the floor of her little pub when she hears a visitor coming would indicate to me that the islanders Synge encountered managed to maintain some sense of cleanliness. The furnishings of the house and the style of construction would bear this idea out. In Synge's book "THE ARAN ISLANDS" he tells the origin of the play's plot. A man from Connemara was hidden by the islanders of Inis Mór when he fled there having killed his own father. The islanders gathered his fare to the US beliving that there was no point in sending a second man from the same family to his death when he would have to live with his conscience was sufficient punishment!
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