The Burren

The Burren is a place you might drive through, seeing nothing but distant glimpses of the sea and stone upon grey stone. An inhospitable place for the incurious. But stop. Take time to loiter here, for this place demands patience to find its beauty and the richness of its history. Your eyes must learn to focus in a new way. To pick out stone from stone. In the natural terraces are secreted minute things of beauty. A thorn tree perhaps, growing dwarfed and tortuous along a fissure in the rock. A group of gentians spearing upwards through a cushion of mossed grass. Even dolmens and gallery graves can remain hidden in the natural stone. It takes time for the eyes to detect the shape of man-made structures from their background of rock.

It is fragile, limestone country. Plants grow tentatively in cracks, or on the thin layers of soil. The rocks themselves look impermanent, laid out in broken pavements and higher on the hills in a sharply defined series of cliffs and terraces. Some of those rocks look still on the move, as though just hesitating for a hundred years or so. Possibly the most captured, the most static rocks are those that have been used by man. Dolmens and gallery graves have a more indestructible air, and air of immutability. There were assiduous builders in Clare. Apart from the dolmens and gallery graves which were so doggedly erected four or five thousand years ago to mark the buried dead, there are the stone forts. Circular forts with sometimes two, sometimes three enclosing walls. There would have been a dwelling house within the walls. Beyond the walls, the predators...Later, much later, Christians came and used the stone to build their churches and abbeys. Some, like the Cistercian abbey at Corcomroe, stand prominent against a hillside. Others like the nearby Oughtmama churches lie low, concealed in a valley. There were secular interests too. A building of double architectural interest is Lemaneagh Castle with its mediaeval five-storey tower, and its later, four-storey 17th century dwelling...

In so short a space I can only whet your appetite. Visit the Burren Display Centre at Kilfenora, http://www.theburrencentre.ie/ where you will be given a sensitive, visual introduction to the area. Buy a lovely map entitled "The Burren, a map of the uplands of North-West Clare." With this you could explore every last stone of the Burren.

The Burren is a place of distinct layers, with hills rising from wide valleys in steps of stone. Once the hills were wooded, and soil covered the high plateaux, but since the arrival of those first farmers at the end of the stone age, the soil has slipped down the hillsides, eroded by tillage and over-grazing, leaving behind the uncovered limestones. Sometimes the soil has been caught in the valleys. At other times it has disappeared into the sea. Driving from Ballyvaughan to Blackhead, you will emerge from a narrow valley to find yourself on the side of a mountain which falls barrenly below you to the sea, and which climbs above you to its stone-delineated sky-line. It is good in such places to walk across the broken pavement, just to reassure yourself that life still exists, and to discover the tenacity of plants which will insist on growing in each split pavement where soil has been trapped in its downward passage by the fissures.

The Burren is famous for its flowers. You'll scarcely see a tree, and you'll scarcely find fresh water up in the high Burren. But the water is there. On the West coast of Ireland it could hardly be denied that it rains. Rainfall is high. But the rain doesn't stay on the surface. Instead it trickles down through fissures, through swallow-holes and pot-holes, to join the network of rivers and lakes which run below the surface of the ground.

They call this landscape Karst, and combined with the warm, wet climate, it makes territory for a unique variety of flowers. In this small area grow alpine, arctic and mediterranean species in harmony. In spring and early summer you will find the best profusion of rare and beautiful flowers, but at any time of the summer, a walk in the hills will be rewarded by the sight of flowers in unusual places.

The Burren is a beautiful place. Please remember how delicate and tenuous its structure is and treat it with care. http://www.insideireland.com/

Donegal

Its lilting musical ring has ensured its inclusion in an endless number of ballads and songs. The place name itself is taken from the Gaelic meaning 'the fortress of the stranger,' and perhaps ensures that nobody is allowed to feel like a stranger in the County. The excessive friendliness of the people is occasionally mistaken for prying curiosity, which indeed it sometimes is! A series of questions, not necessarily impersonal, leveled at the average tourist or stranger by proprietor, clientele or both in any of the many little pubs scattered throughout the county is the locally accepted mode of befriending the outsider. Upon answering, a reciprocal revelation of facts from the interrogator will distinguish him from prying inquisitor and a friend will have been acquired. In the case of the bashful native icebreaking greeting may be required from the stranger to introduce to him someone it would appear later had been his friend for life. The natives are zealously loyal to their county and are loath to leave it for another land or even another county!

Although geographically Donegal is very much a part of Northern Ireland, politically it belongs to the Republic of Southern Ireland. Consequently its insular position has resulted in certain deprivations; in poor roads and communications, both of which are being subjected to an intensive overhaul at the moment. But then the narrow twisted winding roads almost complement the landscape. It is a land of extremities; it boasts deep valleys and high rugged mountains, jagged surf-sprayed cliffs and golden flat wave-washed beaches, heathery boglands and grassy fertile lands, often on the same small farm ensuring the farmer total self sufficiency, growing his own food and cutting his own turf. A heaven for the hippy of yesteryear!

Emigration was once the scourge of Donegal as indeed it was of the whole west coast. Ruins of uneconomic farmsheds remain as reminders of the twin pestilence of famine and emigration of the past century. But the ebbing tide has been stemmed, and the latest census shows an increase in the population of the county for the first time since the early 19th Century.

For the Archaeologically minded, Donegal boasts two of the most impressive stone forts in the Country. Aileach na Ri, home of the Kings of Ulster in the north of the county, and Doon Fort near Portnoo which is accessible by rowing boats which are available for hire. Dolmens abound, one of the best examples being found in Kilcooney. Of the castles, Doe Castle, home of the MacSweeneys and Donegal Castle once of the greatest castles in the province and fortress of the renowned O'Donnells, merit visits though they are now only shadows of their former splendour.

Glencolumbcille is a favourite Mecca with Archaeologists offering examples of a great number of Antiquities and a meticulously erected folk village demonstrating the various modes of living in Donegal over the past two centuries. Slieve League offers to the visitor a superb combination of thrusting sea, precipitous cliff and lofty mountain. Errigal presents a challenging climb to those endowed with an adventurous spirit and the stamina to pursue it.

The coastline is dotted with cute little villages which become the hub of activity in the Summer and virtually hibernate for the rest of the year. Coastal islands of all sizes abound. Aranmore being the largest and most accessible, only 20 minutes from Burtonport. Its population is bilingual as indeed is the population of most of the coastal region where the lapping waves lend an orchestral backing to the lilting Irish nuances.