two people in ireland

Can you guess who took which picture?

inspired by the landscape

Landscapes leave impressions. These paintings come from my appreciation of the light and landscapes of the Burren region of Ireland.

beautiful inisheer

If you love rocks (and who doesn't?) the west coast of Ireland is the place to go. I am no stranger to stone walls, but have never seen anything like the stone walls of Inisheer, a small island off the coast (one of the three Aran Islands).

The Aran Islands are a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) region. Only about 5% of the people in Ireland speak Irish, but you'll see it written everywhere. Forget about trying to figure out the pronunciation of written words, but you can enjoy the beauty of the spoken language. We heard it in the coastal towns and on Inisheer.

photographing wildflowers in the burren

Experts say that Mediterranean and arctic flowers bloom together in the Burren. I only know that it is a beautiful landscape, sometimes bare limestone, sometimes dressed with these jewel-like plants.

ruins near quilty

These pictures were taken near Quilty, a tiny, coastal town. Every town we visited had an ancient, ruined church. It seems that once the roof caved in, the graveyard expanded to what had once been the inside of the church.

The castle was one of those I mentioned in an earlier post—it has become a fencepost for the corner of a pasture. You can see the farm gate in one of the pictures. Unlike most of the castles we saw, this one stands in a broad, flat, open field.

lahinch

We stayed in a town called Lahinch, a destination for golfers and surfers. We are neither, of course. The beautiful beach was just a 5 minute walk from our rental cottage. After our day trips we spent a bit of each evening at the beach and in the village. The sun would set around 9:30 or so, and then there would be a lovely, long twilight.

newtown castle

When you are hiking and see a castle in the distance, walk toward it. You'll be surprised. The surprise might be that the castle is now a convenient fencepost for a farmer's cow pasture, or the surprise might be the carefully restored Newtown Castle at the Burren College of Art.

We hiked early one morning on the Burren Way in Ballyvaughan. The fog was climbing the limestone hills, as we were. We saw the tower in the distance and found our way there.