O'Flaherty was born on 28 August 1896 in Gort na gCapall, translated as "the field of horses", in Inishmór, the largest of the Aran Islands . He was born into a peasant family which plays an important role in his writings along with the harshness of the islands. Fumio Yoshioka, of Okayama University, points out that it has "become commonplace to underline the influence of this environment on O'Flaherty." It shows the reader what O'Flaherty grew up in and around through the use of Patrick Sheeran's words from his study of O'Flaherty: “The villages scattered across the rocky islands were a living testimony to appalling poverty and destitution. There is an old archive that records the frank voices of a parish priest who described those villages as 'the poorest villages in the kingdom, probably in the world'". O'Flaherty himself said of the Island: “I was born on a windswept rock and hate the soft growth of sun-baked lands where there is no chill in the bones of men. Fast thoughts, the rapid flight of hungry birds and the cry of hunted animals are a reality for me. I have seen the salmon leaping fly before the salmon-whale, and I have seen the sated deer become his mate, and the tramp leave his wife, in search of fresh breasts, with the fire of joy in his eyes. (qdt in acceso.net). Together with “There, not only extreme poverty, but the very position of the island fuel in the human soul those demons of suspicion and resentment that make ingratitude seem to be man's strongest vice. The surrounding sea, constantly raging by storms that interrupt communication with the mainland, always maintains a restless restlessness in the souls of the inhabitants, which strongly affects the character, sharpening the ingenuity and increasing the energy,.... .. middle of paper...... O'Flaherty died in 1984 at the age of 88. Works Cited Yoshioka, Fumio. Liam O'Flaherty. Okayama Japan, 2001. Np: np, nd Web. May 26, 2014. "Liam O'Flaherty's Unofficial Homepage - Biography." The Unofficial Homepage of Liam O'Flaherty - Biography. Np, nd Web. June 12, 2014."Recourse: A Knowledge of Irish Literature." Appeal: A knowledge of Irish literature. Np, nd Web. May 20, 2014.Phillips, Terry. “A study in grotesques: transformations of the human in Liam O'flaherty's writing.” Gothic Studies 7.1 (2005): 41-52. Premier of academic research. Network. 12 June 2014."Liam OFlaherty Writer Liam OFlaherty Aran Islands Ireland." Liam OFlaherty Writer Liam OFlaherty Aran Islands Ireland. Np, nd Web. May 21, 2014. The invention of Liam O'Flaherty. Perf. Dr. Frank Shovlin. Galway Libraries, 2014. Video online.