WHERE: Inis Mor, Ireland, the largest of the Aran Islands west of Ireland, is famous for its wild, rugged beauty, a thousand miles of stone walls, stunning views across the Atlantic and clusters of ancient ruins.

Playwright J.M. Synge, best known for his masterpiece "The Playboy of the Western World," spent time on the Aran Islands around 1900. Synge was drawn to the resilient, hard-bitten people and their fierce cultural independence.

WHAT TO DO: There's no better time to visit than the weekend of June 26-28, when Inis Mor runs its Patrun Festival. The annual event shows off the best of the island's traditional way of life, with boat races that include Galway hookers, which are large, red-sailed boats, and curraghs, long tar-coated rowboats that have become an emblem of the west of Ireland.

The festival is fun for all the family, with tug-of-war, sandcastle competitions and donkey rides. There is also traditional Irish dancing and music along the pier, which attracts some of the best musicians from Aran and the nearby counties of Galway and Clare, both known for their traditional music.

Biking and walking are the best ways to experience the island's pristine beaches and patchwork of tiny, stone-bordered fields. Some visitors may wish to take a van or horse-drawn carriage straight to Dun Aonghasa, an Iron Age fort eight miles away on the western side of the island.

The fort's ruins lie in a semicircle around a 330-foot-high cliff, offering stunning views across the Atlantic and the southern Irish counties of Clare and Kerry.

Guides here tell us that the fort was the last possible place for ancient inhabitants to say goodbye before souls were taken over the ocean to Tir na nOg, a mythical land where nobody grows old.

And now I will reveal what I think is the island's best-kept secret. Take the coast road to the isolated fishing village of Gort na gCapall (the name means field of the horse), where there are no tourist facilities but an awe-inspiring view across Inis Mor's limestone landscape. Walk a short distance through stone fields to the crashing waves on the coastline at Poll na bPeist (the worm hole), where the fury of the Atlantic gushes up through a cave like a fountain and falls back down again with the ebb and flow of the waves.

Fill your lungs with fresh air and enjoy the Aran that enthralled Synge — savage, wild and achingly beautiful.