Corey Manno

Corey Manno shares his impressions of Inishturk:

My favorite thing about Inishturk is the food. it's amazing how fresh grown vegetables, fish caught from the beach down the road, or eggs from the chickens in the pen in the backyard is more refreshing than the processed food back home.

One characteristic about the Irish people which is most admirable to me, is their pride. Pride in their history, community, work, and family. It's amazing how people have a desire to improve their community and are willing to take action in doing so, or how a stranger is so selfless with letting you into their home.

The most surprising thing is weather of Inishturk. It's amazing how it can be beautifully sunny and then clouds take over the sky, downpour for a slight 15 minutes and return to a bright windy day. Or a more normal day with a causal 25 mph gust and a single hours worth of rain topped off with a swarm of midges. 

My favorite food has yet to be decided due to the announcement that lasagna will be served tonight, HOWEVER the typical response would be potatoes are absolutely lovely here. 

Sight - elegant 

Smell - like a bay

Taste - Midges 

Sound - Lisa chitchatting overwhelmed by wind 

Touch - nature

sixth sense - history 

After slaving over the horizontal and vertical stone walls for more than 30 hours, watching 'his immeasurable glory' dictate to his soldiers in the battlefield mercilessly for perfection and beauty, the time I've spent with these stones (not rocks) has been a gracious hell.  Finding the perfect stone for the perfect spot with the essential shimmies and the supporting stones to hold it up has been quite the challenge. With all this difficulty in my relationship(s) with stones, I've come to be quite fond of stones. When a pick axe or a 20 pound spear shatters a boulder installed in the side of the pathway, and 100 pieces are made, its broken apart from its original home but it takes something with them, its own story. Some stones are a perfect fit for a vertical or horizontal stone wall, or maybe perfect for a shimmy. Others might simply be stored in the back for support, or might be just buried in the ground. No matter what it may end up, its beautiful to think that 100 separate stones all came from 1 boulder.

Corey