Leading photojournalist Nutan took to the islands in search of the quirky, the insane and the humorous that shows the Irish at their idiosyncratic best, writes Lorna Siggins
Cead is not as easy at it looks, which may be why it is only played once a year, and only on the Aran island of Inis Meáin. The rules are simple - the player lays a small piece of carved round stick, known as the cead, alongside a little flat stone.
"Armed with another stick, of unknown proportion and thickness, you have to hit the cead with a gentle, well-calculated tap, to propel it, at arm's length, in front of you," photographer Nutan writes in his book about the islands off Ireland's coast.
"There, suspended in mid-air for a second [see Newton and the apple], you have to hit it with all your strength to send it flying 32 metres further, across an old fishing rope lying on the ground."
Following the elimination of the other teams, the last two standing compete in the final.
"With the Atlantic swell on your back, your head warmed by the spring sunshine, it is a lovely and healthy way to spend St Patrick's Day," says Nutan.
A third, unofficial and more challenging round takes place when the trophy is eventually presented. The cup is filled with brandy and Guinness in the local pub, and is passed around, always half-full, into the very small hours.
Based on the Galway/Clare border near Kinvara, Nutan is a Belgian-born photographer whose work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Geo, Stern, and The Irish Times among other international publications.
First drawn to Ireland over 30 years ago, he spent some time fishing off Donegal with skipper Joe Aston, and recently persuaded Aston, owner of the schooner Anna M, to take him on a voyage around this island's islands.
Many have undertaken the journey before, but Nutan has a unique perspective on life which transcends his camera lens. He is constantly in search of the quirky, the insane, the humorous that shows the Irish at their idiosyncratic best.
"It's a funny kind of experience to be suspended over the Atlantic in the little blue cab, sitting on a hard wooden bench, with the dung of the last passengers sticking to your feet," he writes of his six-minute journey by cable car to Dursey island off the Beara peninsula in west Cork.
"The machine does not look very solid, but, if it can transport a dairy cow, I reckon I have a pretty good chance of getting to the other side in one piece. Even with big winds, there has never been an accident."
Dursey, where Vikings once herded Irish slaves before shipping them to Scandinavia, has no café, no restaurant, no hotel, no guesthouse. It is a paradise for walkers and birdwatchers as a result.
Nutan introduces himself to one of the island's seven inhabitants, Jimmy Walsh, and they talk about everything and nothing as Jimmy explains he has all he needs in his bare house and doesn't feel much desire to go "out" ashore.
The photographer spends all afternoon walking around the 6km-long island with its three ruined villages and its windswept and wave-worn Atlantic cliffs.
"On my return past Jimmy's house, I can hear the commentary of a football match that is taking place in Italy," he writes. "This sound gives me a surreal sensation. It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and already today I have driven 100km by car, passed through towns and villages, taken a cable car and dozens of photos, walked 10km and now here I am preparing to leave again. By contrast Jimmy has not left his house, and is drinking a cup of tea while he watches 22 men chase a bag of wind in Italy."
Nutan visits Rathlin, with its birds, and Tory, with its painters, where he notes the turf is spent and now has to be imported.
Mick McGinley, an old friend from his fishing days in Killybegs, takes him to Owey in north-west Donegal for the annual sheep-shearing, which ensures the participants' claim to the land there. The last of the islanders quit in 1977, just 50 years after a local judge decided that its populace didn't have to pay taxes and declared it an independent republic.
Arranmore, Co Donegal, which was sustained by herring in the 17th century, destroyed by famine in the 19th century, has the friendliest island population in his view. The populace, including many returned emigrants, is struggling to maintain itself. "There is not a lot to do," he says. "They raise a few sheep, play a little music, catch the dinner, gather blackberries and watch a lot of television." Amid many holiday homes, it can no longer depend on the fishing industry for its survival.
NOT SO ON Inishturk, Co Mayo, where he goes pot-fishing in a currach with the Heanue family. A vibrant community of 80 sustains a two-teacher primary school, along with four bed and breakfasts, a post office, social club, local pub and hall, chapel and graveyard. Boats come and go all day from the island's two harbours.
"The courageous will to work in all its inhabitants makes Inishturk the most prosperous island I have visited," he says. "I mean spiritual prosperity as well as material."
Nutan witnesses the Caher island pilgrimage, digs out the moving Daily Mirror account of the exodus in October 1960 from Inishark, captures the thousands of gannets and acres of guano on the Skelligs, and includes the inshore "mayfly islands" of the great western lakes on his odyssey.
He finds a Galway Bay pucan, similar to a hooker, which he had once restored on Bere island, Co Cork, and is reassured to find it in the hands of shipwright Noel Muckley, who has moved with his wife Sarah from England to start a school of traditional boat building.
Entranced, he knows his breathtaking images and collection of anecdotes do not necessarily reflect the harsh reality of island life. He gives the final word, or words, to Mary Sugrue, daughter of the last inhabitant of Horse Island near Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry.
Born there in February, 1942, she was one of four among the last family to live on the outcrop. "One other family, the de Barras, were with us on the island but they left and we spent almost six years on our own."
She describes how extra groceries for the winter had to include tobacco - because if there was a shortage "no one could put up with the men in our house".
Learning everything about boats was an imperative. "When the sea would be quiet, we would row to school, as it was usual for my father to be away fishing. My mother would be watching us from the house until we had reached the harbour out there, and again in the afternoon. She would not take her eyes off us until we were safely on the island strand. There was a lot of anxiety involved in the life of the island that no one would understand but a mother who raised her family there.
"I was always afraid of the journey from school on Fridays," she says. "Because on that day it was my grandfather who used to be in charge of the boat after getting his pension and he would have quite a lot of porter on board. He was a man who would become very unafraid, hopeful altogether on the sea when the drink would be giving him extra courage and instead of going in nice and steady with the flow, he would make for the big, threatening waves out in Bealach, his cap flying so that we, the children, were frightened out of our lives."