Church ruins ... by the yard

The sandy beach was a little larger than half a football field, with big rocks at one end and a small entryway at the other - big enough for a single vehicle's passage. Several of us swam in our clothes since we had failed to pack bathing suits. Who thought Inishmore, largest of the three Aran Islands off the southwest coast of Ireland, would have a public beach? I didn't even expect swimsuit weather, though it was early August.

We didn't spend much of our free time at the beach anyway. We had just two weeks to explore this island, one mile by nine miles, with all of its old forts and churches and ruins. That meant two weekends and after work on weekdays,

Our group of 14 Americans was on Inishmore helping Sinead, a PhD candidate from the University of California, with her research mapping, sketching, and photographing medieval churches.

Two weeks were not enough to complete work at all of the island's churches, but we were the second group to visit that summer, with another group to come.

We ranged in age from early 20s to early 40s. Several were teachers. We chose this project in Ireland from several available through University Research Expeditions Program (UREP), which is organized through the University of California, Davis and lists 10 to 20 research projects that the university's PhD candidates are working on.

For a fee and transportation costs, any able-bodied person can get involved tracking insect movements in Madagascar, examining the effects of weather on Easter Island statues, observing the nighttime mating habits of underwater creatures off the coast of France, or participating in an archeological dig in the western United States, among other projects.

Costs range from less than $1,000 for projects in the US to several thousand for travels to far-off places.

I didn't know all this when I bought a copy of Outside magazine to peruse the ads in the back for a European soft-adventure vacation. Then I happened across a UREP ad. The project in Ireland seemed tailor-made for me because it was one of the few offered in Europe that year and because it was in my price range: $1,300 plus transportation.

Living and eating arrangements vary by project but are always included in the fee. On Inishmore the 14 of us stayed in a rented house, two or three to a bedroom, though the lone man in the group had a single room. Despite our number and only two bathrooms, it still didn't seem crowded.

We paired up for two nights' cooking duty during our two-week working vacation. After a day in the field, the partnered participants would bike to the market to buy ingredients for that evening's dinner. Soups, salads, and spaghetti were popular meals, but one night we had fresh fish that Oliver had caught in the Atlantic the night before.

Oliver was our driver, delivering us to our work sites in the mornings and picking us up in the afternoons.

Oliver made his living giving tours to folks traveling to Inishmore by boat from County Galway. He waited at the dock until he had a full-enough van and then led the tour past Teampall Bheanain and Teampall MacDonagh, the most intact medieval churches, and the most famous ruin, Dun Aengus, which is more than 2,000 years old.

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