Great… another free wifi hotspot for blogging.
My next stop has been to visit two locations in Burren National Park which is in County Clare. It’s the smallest of the six national parks in the Republic of Ireland covering approximately 15 square kilometres. The park is renown for it’s geology, which is mostly limestone slabs crisscrossed with cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints".
This is definitely not sheep country and the few cattle appeared to struggle to find something to eat. So it’s a rock farm!
I had previously seen a photo of Poulnabrone dolmen which is located in the park and as it looked rather significant I though a visit might be interesting. Poulnabrone dolmen is a Neolithic portal tomb dating back to approximately 4000BC. I had been anticipating a structure around the size of Stonehenge.
As you can see in the above photo, it’s tiny, only about 12ft high.
The Irish have also been cheating. One of the side walls cracked and the structure was dismantled in 1980 to replace the affected stone. Whilst they were doing this the site was excavated and the remains of 33 adults and children were found. There were a pile of bones which suggested the bodies had been buried in another location and the skeletons subsequently re-buried in the tomb.
Another example of the natural cracking of the rock
2 comments :
The Burren National Park is just a small area within the The Burren which covers 260 square kilometres. It is well known depository for rare plants and orchids, such a pity you were not able to visit when they were in bloom. In regard to the Burren you need to visit http://www.burrenbeo.com/burren/image-galleries and enlighten yourself.
I hope that you will have a wonderful holiday in my adopted home and make many friends and that before you leave you make a visit to Newgrange.
a great link... thank you My comments were a little "tongue in cheek" and regrettably I wasn't able to spend more than half a day in the park. There appeared to be some great walks but alas no spare time!
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