STOP 2: BARRIO DO CURRO (self-guided route The Names of the Island)

If you prefer, you can download the complete self-guided route leaflet in PDF format HERE.

This neighborhood was built by the state in the 1960s to modernize and improve living conditions for the island’s population.

More than 90 houses stretch along the eastern side of Ons, a legacy from the mid-20th century, when 500 people called the island home. Just like in cities, the houses are grouped into neighborhoods.

The buildings along this slope you’ve just climbed were constructed in the 1960s by the National Institute of Colonization, aiming to provide infrastructure to a population that had long lacked basic services such as medical care.

That’s why schools, a church, and houses for the teacher, priest, and doctor (although this last one was never used) were built here, along with a communal grain silo and an enclosure for livestock. Even earlier, this area of the island may have already hosted a livestock pen (Cabeza Quiles, Aunios 23, 2018), which is likely the origin of the neighborhood’s name. In Galicia, these enclosures are known as curros, and the name came to apply to the whole neighborhood.

Today, fewer than 10 people live on the island year-round.