Connemara

My photos and my words give poor justice to this most distinctive landscape - this region in the west that contains Connemara.  Most tourists are directed south to Co Kerry and its famous "Ring."  And indeed, the landscape there is stunning.  Ireland in Technicolor - the most vivid greens, the most lush foliage - endless fern and moss and hillside field.  A beauty that assaults you.  A simple place of simple beauty.  An easy place to love.

Give me the hard and harsh and brutal beauty of Connemara, where you can see the granite muscles of the mountains straining to burst free of the constraining earth.  Where the ice age ran strong and savage across the land.  Where vast stretches of land lie low, filled with spongy bog and with innumerable lakes and inlets teeming with life.  And where mountains soar high and dare life to intrude upon their weatherbeaten and merciless heights.  Where tortured trees yield to the uncompromising will of the winds.

I have sought some expert advice in the describing of these areas.

From Etain O'Carroll, the author of Lonely Planet - "The Irish landscape isn't always straightforward.  Its many layers of stone walls and hedgerows and its constantly changing light means that it unfolds slowly as you walk or drive by.  Endless green or golden hills, buttery bogland and scatterings of glassy lakes - this is a place of splendid isolation."

Please click on this link to hear some original poetry about the area read by the authors - In a distinctive voice.  Enjoy the accents and make sure to treat yourself to the poem spoken in Irish from Louis de Paor (Gaeilge).   I particularly direct you to listen to Joan McBreen, Theo Dorgan, Moya Cannon, and Eva Bourke.

Remember, you can click on the photos to see them in a larger format.

For perspective, find the tiny house in the bottom left

Glassilaun Beach - mentioned in one of the poems

Thomas Horton's poem Connemara

West of Galway lies a land
Scorched by the chill of northern winds
Where ancient hills stoically contemplate
Their grey reflections in dark, misty lakes

Roiling stormclouds serve as the canvas
For a monochromatic panorama
That lulls the local folk
Into an inescapable monotony
Their lilting language itself
A murmur that recalls the falling rain

The plodding passage of days
In this dreary, silent landscape
Is a hell all its own
For those accustomed
To urban bustle

But the ginger natives of this grey land
Sing bright céilí songs
Drink their lager by golden firelight
Dance reels and jigs
And tell stories of a time
When giants roamed the hillocks
And heroes sailed the roaring seas
In search of mythic monsters

Descended from hearty stock
Of shepherds and saints
These rustic people still regard
The old ways as new
Discover their future through their past
And are never bored
As long as there's a tale to be told
A smile to take in
Or a pint to share with a friend

Children of the Gaeltacht
Sing your rowdy songs
Remind me once again
Of that night in Ballyconneely
When I was one of you
That night you turned me Irish 

And finally, from Frank Delaney, author of Ireland
"When I come out on the road of  a morning, when I have had a night's sleep and perhaps a breakfast, and the sun lights a hill on the distance, a hill I know I shall walk across an hour or two thence, and it is green and silken to my eye, and the clouds have begun their slow, fat rolling across the sky, no land in the world can inspire such love in a common man."