Touring Inishmore on 2 wheels

KILRONAN, Ireland — Cycling across the largest of Ireland’s Aran Islands, it’s easy to lose yourself in the labyrinth of walls, painstakingly built over centuries, rock by rock, by a handful of people determined to eke an existence from a reluctant but beautiful land.

Fewer than 1,000 people live on Inishmore today, and the island historically was not home to more than a few hundred at a time. The seemingly endless grid of rock walls — built to clear the land for crops and pastures — stands as a testament to the human spirit.

“There’s no mortar in them,” said Padric Deirrane, 54, a part-time stonemason who was building a modern wall around a new residence just outside Kilronan when we rode up on our bikes. “We cheat now. We could build them without mortar, but it’s easier this way.”

Just 8.7 miles long by 2.4 miles wide, Inishmore is the largest of the three Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. In the past 20 years, since ferries started making the 45-minute trip regularly from Rossaveel, the island has become a prime tourist destination.

In August, as many as 1,500 people a day visit the island’s ancient fort atop a 300-foot cliff overlooking the Atlantic, explore the ruins of its medieval churches or cycle through the walled fields that dominate its landscape.

Inishmore was the last stop on a six-day, 170-mile bike trip my wife and I took through the rugged and picturesque Connemara region of western Ireland, a land of lakes, mountains, colorful towns and Ireland’s only fjord.

Organized by a Dublin-based bicycle touring company, our trip attracted 15 cyclists of all skill and endurance levels from five countries. With more than half the group older than 50 — and one cycling with a replacement knee, we quickly discovered that Americans are not the only baby boomers reluctant to give in to age.

The catalyst for the adventure was a 40-year-old Irishman, Sean McDermott, or John, as he insisted on being called. The self-styled deputy mayor of Ballyconneely, Mr. McDermott was the tour guide who took our bags from one bed-and-breakfast to the next, entertained us at dinners, rescued us when the weather turned bad, and performed nightly in pubs with traditional music and dance groups.

He also arranged two birthday parties, delivered anniversary toasts, steamed a pot of mussels the group had dug from a beach and made a determined but unsuccessful effort at matchmaking for the 15-year-old French student on the trip. In six years of leading group bicycle tours, Mr. McDermott proudly claims “two marriages and at least one child conceived on my trips.”

Most of the cycling was relatively easy, along lightly traveled roads with only minimal changes in elevation. The one exception was a continuous three-mile climb as we crossed the Partry Mountains on the first day’s trek from Cong to Westport. When the pedaling became too difficult, we simply dismounted and walked our bikes.

On a bike, particularly at our cycling speed, you see the beautiful countryside in slow motion — yellow fields of buttercups alternating with white fields of bog cotton; moody, mist-covered mountains that change as often as the weather; explosions of purple from rhododendron-lined country roads; and views so spectacular you forget your aching muscles.

It’s also easy to hop off the bike to check out “the first pub in Connemara,” “possibly the most interesting pub in Connemara” or even “possibly the most interesting craft shop in the West.” The Irish, it seems, are much too modest for Madison Avenue.

Sometimes, you just have to park the bike and walk. We did that at Croagh Patrick, the 2,510-foot peak in County Mayo where St. Patrick is said to have fasted for 40 days and nights in A.D. 441 while banishing all snakes from Ireland.

It’s an imposing holy mountain, with a summit that can be reached only along a half-mile climb through a rock field with a steep slope. Thousands of Catholic pilgrims do it each year, and a small number of them do it barefoot in keeping with a tradition that is no longer widely observed.

There’s a chapel atop the peak, and Masses are held every 30 minutes on the last Friday in July, known as Garland Friday, for an estimated 30,000 pilgrims who make the climb that day.

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