The air inside Malachy Beatty’s whitewashed cottage on Inis Mór is permeated with pungent smells of salt, sea and fish, an aromatic symphony which reminds anyone who enters that the island’s age-old festive tradition is still alive.
While most people on the mainland will be looking forward to turkey and plum pudding for Christmas, it is somewhat different on the Aran Islands, where eating a piece of Beatty’s hand-salted wrasse on Christmas Eve is the ultimate ritual. So popular is the fish delicacy that every year he can barely meet demand, and has been known to turn away requests for large orders from England and America.
Rock fisherman Beatty specialises in preserving wrasse and other rockfish by hand, using ancient salting and drying methods once employed across the islands..
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