A stone seat on the southern cliffs where the playwright J.M. Synge spent his summers writing, looking out across the sound to Inis Mór and the open Atlantic. The views are superb — on rough days the big seas rolling in from the west crash against the cliffs below. It is an easy walk from the main road and one of the most atmospheric spots on the island.
Cathaoir Synge (Synge's Chair)
Clifftop stone seat where J.M. Synge wrote his plays
A story
Synge first came to Inis Meáin on the advice of W.B. Yeats, who told him to go to the Aran Islands and live among the people. He spent four summers here between 1898 and 1902, learning Irish, observing the lives of the islanders, and sitting on this stone ledge above the cliffs watching Atlantic storms roll in. The plays that came out of those summers — The Playboy of the Western World, Riders to the Sea — made him famous. The rock that bears his name looks the same as when he sat on it.