Part 11 - Shoemaking on the Aran Islands

Black and white print

A view of James (Jamesie) O'Flaherty in Kilronan, the main settlement on Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, in about 1935. An annotation on the reverse of the print reads: ‘A special kind of footgear has been developed for negotiating the slabs of limestone with which the island is covered. Called the “Pampootie”, it is contrived of raw cowhide. In the photograph, an islander is seen making himself a pair of these novel shoes’.