The Burren and The Cliffs of Moher

The Great Ireland Voyage, 2011. I went to Ireland, from October 24 - November 2, 2011. I attended a conference in Dublin, and then had some vacation days in Dublin and elsewhere, including Galway. I took a good number of pictures.

This part covers the full day bus tour I took of the west coast of Ireland, which includes The Burren (pronounced "the burn") and The Clifs of Moher (pronounced "the cliffs of more").

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). Around 100 pictures included.

Dunguaire Castle

It was another gray day out. The owner of the B&B made the arrangements for the bus tour. In retrospect, I probably would have gone with a different company (after doing countless hours of research on the Internet, being frustrated by the flood of useless information, and lack of useful information). But they covered the essentials, so it was fine.

The bus picked me up in front of the B&B, which was quite convenient. (Note: They did not provide transport back. So if you read the previous page on Galway at Night, you now know how I came to be at the bus station downtown, at the end of the day. And why I had my camera with me that night.) I was the last one they picked up. It was a nice, comfortable bus. Then we headed downtown and parked and transfered to a smaller less comfortable bus. I should say "smaller" in that the seats were much closer together, front to back, as this bus had a slightly larger capacity. Then we headed out.

The driver was the tour guide and described various things as we traveled. And we stopped at various places. The first was Dunguaire Castle.

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We parked in a lot just beyond the castle. There were chickens in the parking lot. One of the people on the bus found them fascinating and took some pictures of the chickens. I found that interesting, and took pictures of her taking pictures of the chickens. To be honest, if she hadn't been there first, I would be the one taking pictures of chickens.

Next to the parking lot were some old, traditional Irish homes with thatched roofs. A nice country picture. The third one is of the tour bus with another thatched roof house in the background. The sign "Castle Parking" is not commonly seen in the U.S.

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The castle sits on Galway Bay, is 75 feet high, and was built in 1520. I took a few pictures of the castle and the water.

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Another picture of the Dunguaire Castle, and a road sign in front of it (Kinvara is the nearest town) and the front of the castle with a sign indicating that here there be castles.

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A picture of the field to the right of the castle wall. Blackberries (and red blackberries, I think) grew wild around the outside of the castle. I took a picture of them. I did not eat any, since I didn't know if there were any Irish red blackberry diseases one can get when eating fresh fruit in a foreign country (yeah, I'm a city boy). And finally, another picture of the castle with the road leading up to it.

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Two pictures walking along the wall to the left of the castle, looking out to the water. The old stonework was quite impressive. In the the third picture, I'm now on the wall to the right of the castle, still looking out to the water.

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And finally, berries, berries, and more berries. It was neat to see them growing wild along the castle wall. Invaders need some snack to keep up their energy. I took a few pictures, with and without a flash, trying to get a narrow depth of field.

Kinvara and Rurual Ireland

Kinvara is a small sea port village on Kinvara Bay, an inlet into the south-east corner of Galway Bay. It's also known for traditional sailboats, the Galway Hooker (yeah, make whatever joke is required). We stopped in Kinvara for a quick break.

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There were a number of boats, tied up. The boat in the second picture is a Galway hooker (not sure about the others).

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More pictures of Galway hookers tied up.

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A picture of two buildings. One nicely painted, and the other an old stone building. Interesting contrast. And a picture of a sign that amused me. Kind of a "watch that first step, it's a doozie!"

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I took a few pictures from the bus as we were going. The driver pointed out another castle in the distance, shown in the first picture. It's in a state of disrepair. The roof is missing. Not sure if the owner can't afford to fix it (likely) or that there are tax issues that make it better if it's not habitable (also likely).

The second picture shows some ships in the bay that look to be grounded. I imagine it's low tide. The third is another small castle. Basically, there are a lot of old castles or the remains of castles, throughout the countryside. Often they are not in good shape.

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We passed a kind of mound in the ground. It's kind of a ring or donut (or torus), with a gap in it. It was used, centuries or millenia ago by shepherds. Back in the day, before branding or other forms of labeling, a shepherd's flock comprised the sheep that were in front of him. If one of his sheep wandered off somewhere and someone else found it, hey, free sheep! Similarly, if he found a sheep that wasn't his, it was his then. And this was before fences and barns and the like. So in the evenings, the shepherds would herd the sheep (shep?) into one of these enclosed circular mounds, which is where they and he would spend the night. In addition to protecting his "property" from running off, it also provided them a defense against predators, that would hunt them at night, if they were out on their own. At least that's what the tour guide told us. I THINK that this one is the Ballyallaban Ring Fort.

Poulnabrone Portal Tomb

The Poulnabrone Dolmen is a stone burial mound in the Burren. It's a very rocky area with bits of grass growing around. One source says it dates back to 2500 BC, others say between 4200 BC - 2900 BC in the Neolithic period. It consists of three stones: a twelve-foot slab-like top 6 feet off the ground, and two portal stones that support the slab. In 1985, after a crack was discovered in one of the portal stones and then it collapsed, scientists excavated the area before replacing the cracked stone. They found between 16-22 adults and 6 children had been buried under the stones, along with various items (axe, crystals, pottery, and such). (This is according to the wikipedia. According to the sign in the third picture, the remains of over 30 people have been found at this site.) Just outside the entrance, a newborn baby had been buried, dating back to aroudn 1700 BC.

We stopped there and got to look around at the tomb.

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The first picture is a "you are here" map showing where the Poulnabrone Dolmen is with respect to Ireland and the Buren. The next picture has a more detailed map. And the third has more detailed information about the area and the geology.

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The first picture is of a glacial erratic rock that is mentioned in the previous picture (of a sign). The rock was left here by a glacier from a previous Ice Age. The second picture shows the ground, with all the crevasses in the limestone, called grikes. The blocks of limestone are called clints. Grass grows in the grikes, onto the clints. (No, I'm not making up these works, look at the sign again for more information.) The third picture is of the tomb, from a little ways off. There's a small rope line that marks as close as you're allowed to get.

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A picture of the landscapel with the rocks (clints) appearing to pop out between the patches of grass. A picture of the tomb from a different angle (I had to wait a bit for people to move out away from the front of it. There was no way to get a picture without people in teh area. And then a picture of the limestone clints with the grikes cut into them.

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A close-up of the rocks. With some lichen growing and grass or plants growing in the cracks. And a pictue of a stone wall. Beyond the wall are two horses in a rocky pasture.

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Back in the bus, we passed a few more things, like this castle. The first picture shows the front and the second shows the side. Like many castles around there, it's falling apart. I'm not quite sure which castle this was.

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As we drove, I took a picture of a sign for Cathair Chonaill Stone Fort. I was under the impression that it was referring to the castle in the previous picture. I was wrong. We did not go there. There was another sign, kind of in the middle of nowhere, for the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival. Apparently it's a big thing and people come from all over Europe. A huge, drunken, singles fest.

The Cliffs of Moher

The Cliffs of Moher are a landmark on the west coast of Ireland. At the highest, they reach 700 feet above the Atlantic Ocean below and have appeared in various movies.

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The Visitor's Center (Centre?) opened in 2007 and is built into the hillside, to minimize the distraction from the scenery of the area. To me, it appears like the center was modeled after the Legion of Doom Headquarters, which is to say modeled after Darth Vadar. The second picture shows the coutryside looking away from the cliffs.

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And here we are: The Cliffs of Moher. It's pretty close, but I think I'm partial to the first picture a bit more. The third picture is looking out to the most distant cliff.

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Two telephoto pictures of the top of the cliffs, and a picture of the bottom, with the waves crashing in. The path along the cliff is visible in the first picture, and some wee little people close to the edge are visible in the second one.

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Again, looking back towards the countryside and the small town nearby.

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Another shot of the countryside, and two more pictures of the path along the top of the cliffs. It's quite a ways back from the edge.

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O'Brien's Tower, built in 1835, is a small, castle-looking observation tower built the highest point of the Cliffs of Moher as a (Victorian) tourist attraction (or perhaps as a way for O'Brien to impress chicks...seriously, that is another version of the story). The first picture os of the tower, then a picture of the tower as it sits on a a cliff, and finally a picture of the bottom of the cliff.

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A picture of O'Brien's Tower and the green ciff it sits on. A picture of the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs. And one more picture looking back to the valley away from the cliffs.

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A picture of O'Brien's Tower (relatively close by). The entrance is on the left. The main tower is in the center and the side tower to the left (combined with the main tower) form the gift shop on the second floor. The top, observation deck, is the central tower. The second picture shows the side mini-tower. The third picture is of Jesus ("Hey Suess") a guy from Spain who was in the seat in front of me on the tour bus. I took his picture (well, also with his camera) and he took mine which is below.

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At the bottom is a staircase. You walk up and on the second floor is a small gift shop (perhaps a 10 foot (3M) diameter circle) that sells post cards and charges &ero;2 (around $3) to go up another staircase to the top overlook. I was already there, wasn't going to be getting back there anytime soon, and had two euros in change in my pocket, so I went up there for a look. On top, there's the small deck and then a little mini-platform a few steps above the main deck that can hold maybe 4 people. I went up there, waited for people to leave, and then took a 360° panoramic shot. This time there are clear artifacts from each shot. I didn't feel like spending time trying to smooth things out. Also, photoshop started to freak out with some of the pictures at the edge so this is more like a 270° panorama with the boring stuff that's nothing but ocean cut out.

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A picture of the stone parapet at the top of the tower. And then two pictures that Jesus (see previous shot) took of me. There's a random person in the second shot, and just me in the third.

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The first picture shows the Cliffs of Moher in the distance with the parapet at the top of the tower in the foreground. It was a foggy, drizzly day, so visibility is limited. The second picture I took mostly for the sign that described the Aryan Islands which are in no way visible in the picture and were not visible that day. Finally, the last picture is on the ground. There was a green, grassy field just beyond the tower, separated by a stone wall that had grass growing on it, and a fence beyond that. It's a rather constrained shot, because I wanted to get all the green in and avoid most of the people who were all around (you can see them in the upper right corner of the picture).

More (but not Moher) Cliffs

The last stop on our bus tour was another are of cliffs. I'm still trying to figure out where that was. It had the similar landscape of cracked limestone. It wasn't as high up as the Cliffs of Moher, but we could get as close to the edge as we liked. And with all of the grikes (crevasses) in the clints (limestone fragments), it made for some potentially hazardous terrain. The bus driver simply told us to be careful and not twist an ankle or fall. I like how Ireland is not as lawsuit-happy as the U.S. and requires that people assume some reasonable personal responsibility for their actions.

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The first picture is of yet another glacial erratic rock, just sitting in the middle of the flat area. The second picture has the rock on the left side with the ocean in the distance. And the third picture shows the cliff's edge. The full height of the drop is not really apparent in the picture.

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A picture of some people from our tour group (including Jesus...yeah, it still feels weird typing that) along the edge of the cliff. The second and third pictures are of the flat top of the cliff where we were. A stone wall is visible in the distance. Even through there's grass on the ground, there are many crevasses (grikes) between the rocks (clints). It would be easy to twist and ankle by not paying attention while walking.

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Here is a panorama made from the last two pictures, cropped to be rectangular. While they do link together nicely, the right picture is warped a bit which distorts the hills. There was a bit of a brightness mismatch at the seem, so I did a quick bit of photoshop magic to reduce its impact. A shadowying area is still visible on the ground, but it's not as bad on the sky. The distortion isn't horrible, but I felt like leaving the original two pictures in for comparison.

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The rocks were very pock-marked, with lots of irregularities, as seen in the first two pictures. Would be easy to catch a foot and trip or twist an ankle. I asked a mostly-random person to take my picture with the cliffs in the background, and thus she did. I don't think the person next to me was even with our tour bus. It was rather windy there.

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The first picture is of just the cliffs. The second shows various tourists at the edge of the cliffs. It's a respectable distance down. Plummeting would not be recommended. The third picture shows the sheer vertical lines of the cliff edge, plus some orange/gold lichen on the rocks.

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A picture of the rocks and the water's edge with the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Another picture of the cliffs and the water. And a close-up of some moss or lichen growing on the rock (I believe I used a flash for that).

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Another close up of stuff growing on the rocks (some kind of mossy, planty thing). And two pictures of a stone wall. The first is with natural light (and it was starting to get darker), and the second was with a flash, which lights the stones up more, but loses all of the detail and contrast from the dark cracks in the spaces in between the steones.

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Another picture of the landscape, looking out towards the cliffs. It looks pretty grassy, but it's quite rocky, with a lot of irregular shapes on the rocks. A picutre of our tour bus. And a picture of a house in the country.

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Finally, a few pictures from the bus on the way back to Galway. The houses and farms all had stone walls separating one from another. It's amazing to consider how much effort it took for people to clear so many stones out of the fields and build up the walls, rock by rock. Acid rain eats away at the rocks, however, the top and outer rocks in the walls protect the inner ones, so the walls are stable for quite a few centuries (of course the rain wasn't that acidic till recently, but the exposed rocks will degrade much faster than the protected ones).

I think the second picture is of a llama farm. And the third picture is a sheep farm, a fairly common thing in Ireland.

This page last modified Dec 23, 2011.
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