The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher

Thursday, July 11

Today was devoted to a trip to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher.  We left the hotel after breakfast and the landscape soon changed as we arrived in the area known as the Burren.  From Wikipedia:

The Burren is a region of County Clare in the southwest of Ireland. It’s a karst landscape of bedrock incorporating a vast cracked pavement of glacial-era limestone, with cliffs and caves, fossils, rock formations and archaeological sites. On the Atlantic coast, the precipitous Cliffs of Moher are home to thousands of seabirds, including puffins. 

We had a talk on the geology, the contrasts between limestone and shale, and the use of the land.  It currently is mostly used as pasture for cows, and, intriguingly, the rocks hold sufficient heat that they are a preferred place which the cows enjoy in the winter.  It is a very unusual appearance:

Because the use is pasture and there are multiple owners, there is need for walls, and the landscape is covered with the “famine walls” I described yesterday, built as make-work during the famine:

 The weather is remarkably changeable, with sun, clouds, mist and wind, moving from one to another in rapid succession.  That leads to scenes like this: 

We parked and took a walk on the Burren while our guide filled us with facts about the people who live here, the geology, the role government has played in bringing the landscape back to its original condition by ridding it of invasive species and banning all use of fertilizers and farming chemicals of any sort.  Remarkably, there is good forage for the cattle! 

We then drove a short distance to Poulnabrone Tomb, which was in use for about 600 years, between 5800 and 5200 years ago.  From the internet, “Poulnabrone is classified as a portal tomb. Portal tombs have two large portal stones standing on either side of an entrance capped with a massive sloping capstone.”  It is amazing:

The Burren floor is covered with crevices:

These create microclimates and the interstices are filled with all kinds of plants and wildflowers:

We then drove to the village of Kilfenora where the local cathedral is noted for its late 12^th century high crosses:

After lunch, we drove to the Cliffs of Moher, at the sea edge of the Burren.  We walked up to the top of this spit of land where there is a tower:

There was a gale force wind which drove water droplets against us, and the cliffs were in a semi-fog:

And then, 20 minutes later, it all cleared and the same view was like this:

We walked out on the cliffs (from where the photo of the tower was taken) and enjoyed the truly amazing views.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped briefly at a memorial to the famine, while we heard stories of unfathomable cruelty towards the peasant farmer Irish promulgated by the British and their wealthy Irish landowning partners.  Irish population fell from 8 million to 4 million during the famine, with at least 1 million starving and the others emigrating.

Tomorrow we leave Ennis and travel to Adare, County Limerick.  More then.