On a stormy autumn morning, when a southwesterly wind has the strength to stir up the Atlantic and sweep it over the bogs and freshwater lakes of Connemara, one could hardly imagine that beings could emerge from the landscape and gather in a hall to listen to a talk.
Attentive and punctual beings, what's more, even after a night's music and lubrication for some. But that is the influence of Leo Hallissey, sorcerer, philosopher, environmentalist and principal of Letterfrack National School.
Hosting the annual Connemara Sea Week for the 14th year in a row, Hallissey cast his spell early when he inveigled several wanderers and adventurers to gather in the Quaker village and share their experiences over the October bank holiday weekend. An enthusiastic audience was promised, and delivered upon, including students from Dublin and Galway, visiting environmentalists, musicians and storytellers and, in Hallissey's words, "philanderers and rogues".
Once again, the director of the Connemara Environmental Education Centre has also received the support of Bord Iascaigh Mhara and Galway County Council.
Among the contributors were Dermot Somers, mountaineer, writer and broadcaster; Frank Nugent, climber, sailor and chairman of the Mountaineering Council of Ireland; Paddy Barry, Galway hooker skipper who has made forays to the Arctic and Antarctic; and Mike Miller, an ecologist living in the heart of the Burren.
The full force of the elements set the tone for this year's theme - man's quest for adventure - and the motivation which drives people of this island to quit the native turf and chase the clouds, be it up alpine slopes or over turbulent waters.
Wrapped up in the music of the Clare box-player Josephine Marsh, the McCarthy sisters, Frank Custy, Tola Custy, Jimmy Fitz, Philip Duffy, Kevin O'Brien, Declan Carey and others, it was billed by the schoolmaster as a collective attempt to "explore the underlying pulse that carries our somewhat restless spirits".
Having shared his observations on people's relationship with their landscape in his two highly successful series for TnaG, Dermot Somers gave a witty and enlightening overview of his experiences in Ireland and far beyond, from first Irishman to climb the north face of the Eiger, his ascents in the Alps, Yosemite and the Himalayas, and his recent televised abseil down the Cliffs of Moher.
There was a strong political undertone to his message: that in latter years the cultures he and others came into contact with transcended the physical experience.
He had spent six months in Tibet on mountaineering expeditions, in a landscape stripped environmentally by the harshness of the elements and stripped politically and culturally by the Chinese colonists, and he never wanted to go back there, he said. He did not believe that they would regain their independence in his lifetime.