From about 1740 the Digby family of Kildare became the islands landlords but were in the main absent and only took rent. Many islanders were unable to pay their rent and were evicted.
The 1800s were a depressing period for Aran with successive failures of the potato crop and large scale emigration with the population decreasing from 3521 in 1841 to 1496 in 1976. In fact, conditions became so critical that in 1886 Fr. O’Donoghue, a local priest, made a plea to the authorities to “send us boats or send us coffins”. The request was heeded and 5 years later the Congested Districts Board (set up by the Government to help establish small industries and relieve poverty) began to stimulate the fishing industry. They built piers and a steamer service was inaugurated from Galway to Kilronan, which became a fishing port. A memorial to Fr. O’Donoghue can be found in the form of a Celtic Cross overlooking the harbour in Cill Ronain.
However, it was not until 1922 that the landlords of Aran, the Digby-St.Lawrence family, sold their interest in the islands and the islands's farmers became the owners of their own land.

At the turn of the century, with the Irish literary revival, Aran had visits from many literary figures seeking inspiration. The Yeats brothers, W.B and Jack, brought pen and brush respectively. Lady Gregory spent several periods on the islands and, above all, John Millington Synge discovered there ingredients for several plays and produced a fine book, The Aran Islands, in 1905. However, the real defining moment for the islands was the decision of the renowned film-maker Robert Flaherty to create the documentary, Man of Aran. Having heard from a young Irishman on a boat trip from America to Europe of the Aran Islands, where life was so primitive that the islanders had to make soil by hauling seaweed up the cliffs and mixing it with sand to form a top-soil, Flaherty was instantly impressed. He saw it as a man’s struggle against the elements and began to research the subject. Islanders were cast in the various roles and Flaherty commenced filming in 1932. The islanders, for people who astonishingly could not swim, performed the most incredible feats of bravery. In the film, he gambled with the lives of people living at starvation level and was in constant fear that tragedy would strike. The film won the Grand Prix Award at the Venice Film Festival- and a secure place in the history of cinema as one of the greatest documentaries of all time. In the documentary, islanders take to the sea in their “currachs”, the famous canoes of lath and canvas which it is believed were used by the first inhabitants to these islands many millennia ago.