Posted:  Wednesday 24 June 2009

South East Associates 5th 'May-Away' Trip
to Galway, in Ireland
11th to 15th May, 2009

Way out west in the land of Guinness and Granite.

Dramatic coastline, 3000 foot mountains, blanket bogland, coral beaches, marble quarries, 700 foot cliffs, Neolithic tombs, cliff-edge promontory forts, ancient churches & monasteries, Celtic crosses, ruined castles, fantasy castles, gardens, film locations (‘The Quiet Man’, ‘The Field’ & ‘Father Ted’), lakes, waterfalls, orchids, gentians, ‘clints & grykes’, pubs and even a fjord; all were on the itinerary for the visit of a party of twenty-one South East Associates, spouses and friends to western Ireland (Galway and counties Connemara, Mayo & Clare).

The group at Roundstone

We stayed among the busy Galwegians in the excellent four-star Ardilaun Hotel – at the edge of Galway city, from where we had a coach for three days to explore to the west (Connemara and South Mayo) and to the south (Co. Clare and The Burren).
On the remaining day, half of the party visited the Aran Islands and the other half explored the history of Galway City.

Prof Williams explains why there are fossils even in the steps

This was the fifth ‘May-Away’ trip for the SE Associates, having previously visited: Dingle, Pembrokeshire, Northumberland and South Wales & the Gower.
The weather was good for three days, with rain only on the final day – not bad for an area renowned for its rain!

As in most of these previous trips, our leader was Prof Brian Williams (my brother and Emeritus Prof of Geology at Aberdeen University) – who brought the landscape to life by explaining where the underlying rocks came from and how they influenced what we could see.

For example, on the first day we headed west into Connemara, past Loch Corrib – the largest lake in the Republic, the landscape changed from green pastures (over limestone), where the famous John Wayne film, ‘The Quiet Man’ was made; to rolling boggy moorland and craggy hills (‘The Twelve Bens’) made of granite.

Mannin Bay

Mannin Bay we all thought looked like a Caribbean beach, and in one sense it was - since the sand we were standing on, was not sand – but billions of tiny pieces of fossilised coral.
A short distance away at Dog Strand, the beach was made of tiny shells.

Outcrops of the famous Connemara marble were quarried in several locations.

One of Brian’s friends and colleagues, Prof Martin Feely of Galway University, accompanied us, and took us into a working quarry where we could see where the marble was cut and polished, and where we availed ourselves of numerous free samples (some more than others!).

But it wasn’t all about rocks.  In this far western outpost of the British Isles, the next thing west is America, and on the coast there were monuments to Alcock & Brown who crash-landed there in 1919 after completing the first transatlantic flight, and to Marconi who transmitted the first ever transatlantic radio message in 1907.

Few villages exist in the heart of this rugged land, and around the coast where stone-age people arrived 5000 years ago, you now find delightful centres such as Roundstone (and an excellent Seafood chowder lunch!) and Clifden, the chief town on Connemara.

On day two – we headed south to ‘The Burren’ country in County Clare.
This amazing landscape of limestone pavement cracked into ‘clints and grykes’ appears bleak, yet is far from barren. Scoured of all trees and shrubs with no trace of a river, it nurtures the most amazing selection of flowers and plants from Arctic and Tropical climes side by side!  The limestone also dips into Turloughs - huge sink-holes which flood in winter and are dry in summer, and hides a huge network of caves.  The good drainage creates a year round pasture.

In 1651, Edmund Ludlow one of Cromwell’s mob, said,

"(Burren) is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing."

We walked through one of the larger caves (Ailwee Cave) and saw the ‘hibernation pits’ where European Brown Bears spent the winter as recently as 1500 years ago. The Burren is also dotted with over 90 neolithic monuments – some older than the pyramids.

Chris White and the Poulnabrone Dolmen

The most famous of these is the 4000-year-old Poulnabrone Dolmen - grave to over 30 stone-age people.  We also passed Megalithic Wedge Tombs and Ring Forts with ‘leg breakers’ - jagged rocks perhaps designed to repel invaders.

At Kilfenora after a pub lunch, we visit the ‘Burren Interpretation Centre’ and the monastery.  This has been an ecclesiastical centre since the twelfth century as shown by its ruined church and many famous Celtic High Crosses.
Nearby is Leamaneh Castle a fortified house built in 1480 by the O’Briens, Chieftains of Leamaneh, and destroyed by Cromwell’s allies in 1650.

The Cliffs of Moher

Via Lisdoonvarna - centre of Irish match-making (the marriage type!) we visited the astonishing Cliffs of Moher. These rank with the most spectacular natural landscapes in Ireland, rising 700 feet vertically from the sea and stretching 10km due south.

Laid down over 300 million years ago, they have been shaped by the battering of gales coming in uninterrupted from the Atlantic.

On day three the group split, with half doing a walking tour of Galway City, using booklets (‘Galway in Stone’) written and donated by Prof Feely – which lead through the history of the buildings and through the stone with which they were built, the history of the Earth.

Galway University

The other half took the ferry to the Aran Islands, where another of Brian’s colleagues (Prof Mike Williams) star of the TV programme ‘Coast’, showed us the landscape.  The Aran islands are three large outcrops of limestone (Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer) were once part of the Burren in County Clare.
The Aran Islands are a bastion of strong Irish culture and tradition – captured in the famous Robert Flaherty documentary ‘Man of Aran”.

Inishmore, Aran Islands

Their cultural impact extends to the present day as the recognisable location of  ‘Father Ted’!  On Inishmore, the miles and miles of austere limestone landscape, is dotted with corbelled churches, monasteries and 4000 year old cliff edge circular promontory forts – the spectacular Dun Aonghasa – the most spectacular Celtic Stone Fort in Europe.  It also has some of the most vertiginous cliff scenery in Europe, rapidly being eroded by the force of the unimpeded Atlantic.  Some of us hiked over the island with Prof Mike to view another cliff-edge monument – the Black Fort (Dun Duchathair).
We also saw promontories where the sheer power of the Atlantic storms, have stripped their surface bare and thrown huge rocks a hundred feet back onto the island!

A truly awesomely beautiful place.  Go see it!

On our final day, we are back out west in South Mayo and aboard the coach.
The Dawros river we learn, provided evidence to indicate that 800 million years ago, the Earth was a frozen snowball.

We lunch at Kylemore Abbey, a lakeside gothic fantasy castle with a famous garden, built by a wealthy Victorian industrialist in the mid 19th century, and now a Benedictine Monastery.
At Owenduff  bridge there are ‘bouncy’ bog-runs, though the rain precludes experimentation!

Via the elegantly named Lough Muck we visit scenic Killary Harbour – Ireland’s only fjord (a drowned glacial valley), and then Doo Lough and a tragic tale of the Irish Famine of 1847.

Burnips and Taylors in The Field pub, Linnane

Our final stop was in Leenane, where we visited the pub featured in the film ‘The Field’, and partook of that strange local brew known as Guinness - a fitting end to our visit to the beautiful west of Ireland.

Prof Williams and Associates in The Field pub, Linnane

The header picture is of an "eccentric" stone wall in Galway.

Kevin Williams

(ph  24/06/2009)

« Back to News