The Aran islands that lie off Ireland's west coast are a special place. This is due to their physical landscape of stone walls and karst limestone and the importance of the Irish language to daily life on the islands.
Down through the centuries, they have inspired artists, writers and poets and have attracted international attention. I have just written am Irish Diary in the Irish Times newspaper about an opera set on the Aran islands that was written by a Frenchman. Read it here.
Gilbert Bécaud (1927-2001) was a popular singer and composer who was known as 'Monsieur 100,000 volts' and 'Monsieur Dynamite' on account of his engaging and electrifying stage performance. If you would like to find out more about him, have a look at the conference paper that Axel Klein gave at the Association of Franco-Irish Studies (AFIS) conference in Dublin in 2014. Read it here.
If you would like to hear Bécaud speak or listen to some of his music, there are a number of programmes on the Radio France website about him and his music. Just enter his name into the website's search bar like this and see what you can find.
