Irish Studies: Burren National Park

Hi! So quick update on my life:

1. End of semester is coming up FAST, maybe a little too fast

2. BUT I'm wicked excited to start my traveling adventure afterwards so at least I have something to look forward to =)

3. Lots of artwork to finish: two paintings + final photo assignment

4. Going to the haunted castle this weekend! Whoo hoo!!!!

Alrighty, enough of that, now I'll tell you about my last Irish Studies class. So for this class the lecture was about modern Ireland (especially the Burren) and how the farming community is affected by change. I missed some of the lecture because I had to finish some emails and then I was VERY tired that day for whatever reason so I didn't retain much of what we talked about. Mostly though it was talking about the issues of preservation of the land and placement of certain buildings and structures as well as how the farmers of the past used to do their farming compared to today. Going off of those ideas we took a trip to Burren National Park to take a hike up one of the beautiful mountains there.

It's sort of funny because as untouched as the land is in the park, I feel like I see and experience a lot of what I saw living right here in Ballyvaughan. It was a pretty incredible experience though. For once we went on an actual hike, like up and up and up a mountain! It was so refreshing and tons of fun, not to mention it was a BEAUTIFUL day and the view from the top was spectacular. Unfortunately, like I have said before, none of these photos really get across how amazing it was up there. Even the photos of the view are nothing compared to the feeling of the wind on my face, how far back I could see through the Irish countryside, the warmth of the sun on my skin, and the smell of fresh, clean air; but maybe try and imagine all of those things when you take a look haha.

That's the mountain we climbed, above with one of the many rock walls, below is the tourlough with crystal clear water, so beautiful.

Start of the hike, haha Hannah being silly in the background

So, fun fact about the Burren: this whole area was once the ocean floor. Yup, way back when, most of Ireland was deep under the ocean, so all of the horizontal stripes in the rock (when you see it from the side) are the layers of mud and sediment that flattened and hardened through various weather treatments. All of the cracks on the top of the rocks are stress cracks from the weathering of the rock. So interesting, right? Anyways, this is relevant because the photo above is a coral fossil in the rock! There are lots and LOTS of fossil prints in these rocks because they are so old. I think it's really incredible and it's amazing how, when you look at the landscape, you can just imagine it being the ocean floor.

Lots of little wildflowers are growing!

Incredible view! It gets better, this wasn't even the top =P

haha that tiny grey and white dot in the middle is Gordon D'Arcy. He's like a mountain goat!

This is what I'm talking about, people! Look at those stress cracks! This is pretty much what we were walking on all the way up.

I love the rock walls here, I'm going to miss them in the US.

Up and over! This is a view of the other side of the mountain from the top.

Aaaand our descent. It was pretty much a cliff, folks, pretty difficult, but satisfying once we hit the bottom!

So on the way down my friends Loretta, Kendal, and I found this little valley with a bunch of really cool dead trees. Turns out there were more cool things in this little valley, the coolest being a skeleton of a dead bull! It was SO COOL you guys! Here are the photos of the bones, I've never seen the skeleton of a full animal other than in a museum, it was awesome.

There was this really amazing snarly tree, if I could have named the little valley it would be called death valley haha.

Aaand where the trail let out.

So that day we didn't have our regular bus driver, Brian, with us and the bus driver we DID have with us didn't quite understand what Gordon meant when he said meat us buy the end of the famine road. What's the famine road, you ask? well below you will see us walking it. I don't really know what it was all about, if that was just a name or if anything happened there, but it was A LOT of rocks and we were really tired haha. We got to the end and instead of having a comfy bus awaiting us, there was nothing. We ended up having to send one of our professors to go get the bus and we sat and waited a little while until we could board and be on our way back to Ballyvaughan.

I have to say that was probably by far one of my favorite Irish Studies trips. I know I said that about Coole Park, but this was even better because we were actually out in the wilderness, just us and whatever nature had to offer. It was a beautiful day and the place was incredible, we just couldn't have asked for anything better.

Alrighty, well my next post will be the Aran Islands but I have to edit the photos first so we'll see if I get it up by tonight.