“They were all saintly people,” he says, straining credulity. We both know that was not always true. I could challenge him about the rough justice that was sometimes practised in that tiny, tight community, or tease him about the interesting sex lives of some of the young islanders, but he wouldn't admit to anything. Presenting the people of the Great Blasket in the best possible light has become his mission in life, the thing that keeps him going, since Maureen died. "She got a bad dose of cancer in the brain." They had been married for 62 years.