A saunter around Clarinbridge, in Ireland

Just a wander around Clarinbridge -- Just one thing to point out. At the last picture there is a view into the Burren and on top of the hill, you can just see a cairn. Cairns, tombs etc. on the north side of the Burren overlook Galway Bay, whereaas there are no such sited cairns and tombs on the Atlantic Coast (I found out when doing the Clare Historic Landscape Characterisation. see http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Landscape/Landscape_Clare/area_1.pdf
 in http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/landscape/publications/landscape-character-assessment-of-co-clare/

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

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Coral Strand, Carraroe, Connemara, Ireland

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/53558688 

Coral Strand or Trá an Dóilín  is made from the excreted mineral (1/3 calcium carbonate) of  corallines  red algae, rather than true coral. It has been used in the past to sweeten the acidic local soils, and is a soil conditioner, BUT it is a non-renewable resource as the stuff is excreted at a far slower rate than it could be used.  

Click on http://www.panoramio.com/photo/53558692  to see location


An Cheathrú Rua the Irish for carraroe, means the Red or Ruddy Quarter and despite being a townland (baile) it derives the first part from the Irish name for a quarter-division of a wider baile / community. The ruddy part refers often to poor land, through the browning or bronzing of dead vegetation, possibly. 


Connemara,  Conmaic ne mara is commonly translated as the tribe of Cormac by the sea. It has never had any official standing but refers to the wilder district of Connacht and County Galway which stretches west into the Atlantic.  Despite - or because - of official neglect it retained a strong local identity, large Irish-speaking communities, its own breed of horse and a tradition of personal and communal independence.