Carrot Ridge and the Maumturks – Connemara revisited
With good weather forecast for the west of Ireland over the August Bank Holiday weekend, I decided, along with two friends, Piotr and Natasza, to head for the mountains of Connemara. These quartzite hills, (hills or mountains?, this became a discussion point over the weekend,) have intrigued me since I first visited them back in…
The Burren in June – a land of unusual geology and remarkable flora
The strange geology of the Burren – Slieve Roe from Mullaghmor in the Burren NP. The Burren, on Ireland’s west coast in the county of Clare, is an area of limestone rising to a modest 300 metres above the nearby sea level. The limestones, from the Carboniferous period, were formed 340 million years ago in…
The Twelve Bens, Connemara, a winter excursion
2012 was one of the wettest years on record in Ireland, and particularly so in the west, so this February it seemed like a good idea to head to Connemara and see for ourselves. Not as daft as it sounds, as February can be a cold, dry and sunny month, great for long views and…