Tag: Aran Islands

Inishmore Slideshow

An Aran Island Revel

MichaelStephenWills20 Comments

Imagine yourselves in an open cart exploring the island. Here are the photographs from my Inishmore exploration posts. Enjoy!!

Thank You Veterans — remembering them on Veterans Day

  • Kilronan bibycle hire
  • View from a horse drawn trap headed down Cottage Road toward the village of Kilronan on a early June day, the island of Inishmore. On the right a stone ditch (wall), at the base the white flowers of Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella saxifraga) (Irish Name: Ainís fhiáin). A steeple with bell and cross just visible. In the distance is the island of Inishmaan, the North Atlantic and Galway Bay. Aran islands, County Galway, Ireland.
  • This ruined church is on the right side as you travel Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland. The distant highland is Inis Mann, across Galway Bay. A curious horse looks over a wrought metal gate set in a dry stacked limestone wall.
  • Riding a horse and trap on Cottage Road from Kilronan village, Inishmore, Aran Islands, Country Galway, ireland
  • Those bicyclists could have been us.
  • This thatched cottage with matching child’s playhouse is on Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village on the Aran island, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland.
  • Roadside daisies on Cottage Road out of Kilronan village, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
  • North view from Cottage Road overlooks walled fields, karst
  • North view from Cottage Road overlooks walled fields, karst
  • An island cottage among fields along the Galway Bay coast, the twelve pins of Connemara beyond.
  • An island cottage among fields along the Galway Bay coast, the twelve pins of Connemara beyond.
  • We stopped for lunch and a present for my son, a sweather purchased from the woman who knitted it.
  • SONY DSC
  • The view is looking southwest from the path leading to Dun Aonghasa in springtime. We see here dry stone wall of limestone laid in a pattern suggestive of herringbone, splotches of orange lichen mark the stones. Against the wall is growing a variety of plants. The prominent white flowers are Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella major) (Irish Name: Coll an dromáin). Beneath are leaves of Wild Strawberry (Scientific Name: Fragaria vesca) (Irish Name: Sú talún fiáin) as well as fern and grass. Beyond the wall is karst landscape rising to the ridge. Above the ridge, storm clouds gather. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.
  • This defensive structure called a Cheval de fries field surrounds Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus). This northwest view looks across the field and surrounding defensive walls. It is an early June day and, in the foreground, are colorful wildflowers among the limestone shards and blocks. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.
  • Looking North, Northwest across the slopes below Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus), Inishmore
  • Walled Path to Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) with Island Landscape, Inishmore
  • Karst landscape with Green Field and Clouds, Inishmore
  • Inishmore Landscape
    Inishmore Landscape
  • Karst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun Aonghasa
    Karst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun Aonghasa
  • Detail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of Sea
    Detail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of Sea
  • Ancient Fort Entrance, Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)
  • Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)
    Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)
  • View east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort wal
  • View east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort wal
  • Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
    Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Click for another great Island post, “Inisheer Welcomes the 2014 Gaeltacht Irish Football Champions.”

Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland

Island Shrine

part of the Irish landscape

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

Modern stonework borders the 1/2 mile path to the inner Dún Aonghasa walls, keeping tourists off delicate plants, maintaining the integrity of this ancient site. 

The view north, northwest over the walled path to Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) looking across karst landscape, walled fields, farms, the North Atlantic Ocean, coast of Connemara and the 12 Bens (12 Pins) mountains. Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.ng lintel) in the surrounding wall, to left of center in middle distance.

Click the photograph for a larger view.

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

A roadside shrine on Cottage Road, Inishmore. The faith brought by the saints has deep roots here.

A large crucifix set with wet stone walls with cut flowers. The walls are the native limestone.

It is a spring (early June) afternoon and there are fern and wildflowers. The white flowers are Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella major).

The existing dry stone wall was interrupted by the shrine. In the distance are dry stone walls around fields, a stone shed, feeding horses and the sea, being Galway Bay, storm clouds with distant rain.

Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.

  • Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland
    Roadside Shrine and Island Landscape, Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

References: search google “Wet Stone”

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Cliff Edge II

Flowers on the edge

MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

From the commanding location of Dun Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore island, we can understand why the ancient builders chose this location.

We also see the transition from exposed limestone to the fields built literally from the ground up (see my post “The How of Soil”).  For a closer view of island houses see my posts “Settled In” and “Cottage Road Cottage.”

The field walls are described in my posts, “What is a rock, what is a stone?” and “Stone on Stone.”

Click the photograph for a larger view.  Enjoy!!

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

Breaking waves, turquoise sea below the dramatic cliffs of the ancient fort Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus),

in the distance the karst landscape of Inishmore with clouds of an approaching storm over Galway Bay.

Sea Campion (scientific name: Silene uniflora) (irish name: Coireán mara) clings to the edge.

Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.

  • View east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort wal

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Cliff Edge I

Beware of falling rock

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

From the commanding location of Dun Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore island, we can understand why the ancient builders chose this location.

We also see the transition from exposed limestone to the fields built literally from the ground up (see my post “The How of Soil”).  For a closer view of island houses see my posts “Settled In” and “Cottage Road Cottage.”

The field walls are described in my posts, “What is a rock, what is a stone?” and “Stone on Stone.”

Click the photograph for a larger view.  Enjoy!!

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

Breaking waves below the dramatic cliffs of the ancient fort Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus),

in the distance the karst landscape of Inishmore with clouds of an approaching storm over Galway Bay.

A crack in the limestone foretells the next cliff erosion, “don’t step there!!.”

Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.

  • View east, southeast from the Cliff Edge of the Ancient fort wal

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)

Where a fort falls away

An abrupt emptiness

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

Here is the east side of the inner enclosure wall of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) where it ends at a cliff edge over the Atlantic ocean.

Visible are the last 60 feet or so of the limestone strata supporting the inner ring.

When first constructed, the inner ring was complete, the western side 1,000 feet from the cliff.. Today’s form of a semi-circle was created by nature when the force of Atlantic Ocean waves eroded the cliff, undercutting the strata.

Look close to see a fracture where the next block of limestone will fall into the waves.

  • Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)
    Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)

Wishing a blessed All Saints Day (November 1st) for all my readers.

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Reference: wikipedia Dún Aonghasa, Sea Campion

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Inner Ring, entrance

a storm threatens

MichaelStephenWills

In my last posts, “Inner Ring, at last” and “Inner Ring, look down,” we passed over the entrance to the inner enclosure.

A long path through fields, karst landscapes and outer walls leads to this entrance to the inner ring of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) of Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland. The image composition is as a dramatic landscape with the surrounding walls and the cloudscape of an approaching storm.

  • Ancient Fort Entrance, Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Reference: wikipedia Dún Aonghasa

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Detail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of Sea

Inner Ring, look down

A time of wildflowers

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

My previous post, “Inner Ring, ssss”, lowered the horizon. Here, we study the base of the inner wall.

A detail of the interior wall of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) in springtime. White flowers of Sea Campion (Scientific Name: Silene uniflora) (Irish Name: Coireán mara) set against the ancient dry stone wall. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.

We found Sea Campion throughout the west Ireland coast.

  • Detail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of Sea
    Detail of Dun Aonghasa Dry Stone Wall with White Flowers of Sea

Wishing a blessed All Saints Day (November 1st) for all my readers.

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Reference: wikipedia Dún Aonghasa, Sea Campion

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Karst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun Aonghasa

Inner Ring, at last

Site of earliest construction, 1,100 BC

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

A view to the northwest from within Dun Aonghasa in springtime. The interior a karst formation (see my post, ” Galway Bay View from Dún Aonghasa”), the grikes (see my post, “Grykes and Clints”) filled with grass and a sprinkling of white and yellow flowers, a cloudscape rising over the walls. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.

  • Karst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun Aonghasa
    Karst Landscape with Interior Walls of Dun Aonghasa

Wishing a blessed All Saints Day (November 1st) for all my readers.

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Reference: wikipedia Dún Aonghasa

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Inishmore Landscape

Shape of the land

Connections, near and far

MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

From the commanding location of Dun Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore island, we can understand why the ancient builders chose this location.

We also see the transition from exposed limestone to the fields built literally from the ground up (see my post “The How of Soil”).  For a closer view of island houses see my posts “Settled In” and “Cottage Road Cottage.”

The field walls are described in my posts, “What is a rock, what is a stone?” and “Stone on Stone.”

Click the photograph for a larger view.  Enjoy!!

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Grykes and Clints

where the wildflowers grow

MichaelStephenWills14 Comments

The exposed limestone of the Aran Islands here transitions to a fertile field of grass, husbanded by generations of islanders. Photograph was taken from the path on Inishmore leading up to Dun Aonghasa. 

The Aran Islands are an extension of The Burren of Ireland’s Counties Claire and Galway.  The word burren is from the Irish Boireann, meaning “great rock.”  The glaciers that covered Ireland, retreating about 10,000 years ago, scraped down to the bedrock, exposing wide areas of limestone and dropping, here and there, large rocks.  When people came along the foreign nature of the large rocks was recognized, all the more obvious for lying on the horizontally bedded, exposed limestone.  We call the foreign rocks erratics.  The underlying scoured rock is a pavement for a resemblance to a cobbled roadway.

The incised line, filled with grass and wildflowers, in the following photograph is called a gryke.  The body of stone between the grykes are clints.  Sometimes, the grykes are cross hatched and the clints resemble cobblestones or flat paving stones. 

The view is northeast toward the 12 Bens of Connemara. Inishmore, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland

Click the photograph for a larger view.

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

  • Karst landscape with Green Field and Clouds, Inishmore

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

References: search wikipedia “The Burren” and Google “gryke”, “clint.”

Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved