Photos, videos and docs of Herb Riddle, with the keywords: "County_Mayo"

The green cove

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 07:37:16 +0000

It was not all green like this but there was a lot of this green sea-weed just in this corner. In other places I might have thought it some kind of pollution but this looked in good condition and so must be quite natural. This is in fact an old whaling station cove in County Mayo Ireland. Long since abandoned.

Essential full screen

A view from the Ballycroy National Park

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:53:17 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Another vista from the boardwalks of this park in County Mayo. Again looking south towards Achill Island. The light over the hills on the clouds I found particularly attractive.

Enjoy full screen.

Rural County Mayo, Ireland

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 06:02:01 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Another wild view of this countryside and a dilapidated old dwelling. There seemed to be a few of these building about in this state. Of course, fences abound.

HFF, enjoy the weekend.

County Mayo: Ballycroy National Park view

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 06:40:19 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

A view from near the visitors centre at this very big national Park. We are looking south towards Achill Island from the centre's round walk. A quite place with a bit of habitation though.

Enjoy the day.

HBM - Ballycroy National Park walkway

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 06:32:50 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

A view from near the visitors centre at this very big national Park. We are looking south towards Glaggan Mountain on the coastal trail. A wooden pathway over this old sensitive peat bog makes it easier to walk down to the waters edge where we saw the old submerged tree roots. (PiP)

Have a great week.

Very, very old tree root in peat.

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 07:36:32 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

We are just at the sea edge of the Ballycroy National Park here in County Mayo and walking along the beach. To the land side there is a bank of over 1.5metres of peat that makes up the coastline but no doubt it is much deeper. Here we see that the peat bogs are covering up ancient tree roots. As we know, peat can preserves such roots for millennium so I wonder just how old this tree would be? Maybe it was here when the Vikings were about or even cavemen?

Cross Lake Bay beach

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 06:28:34 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Our walk today is called the Cross Loop walk. The big sign is for ‘The wild Atlantic Way’ that we are also on. The walk started at the other end of the bay and continued inland by Cross Lake. As can be seen, this is a quite part of the world with not a sole apart from us walking on this splendid beach.

Enjoy full screen.

County Mayo coastal vista

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 07:05:02 +0000

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A long view from our holiday cottage garden to the north showing Kidd Island (on the top left) and Benween Head (top right) on our ‘Children of Lir’ walk done a few days previously. This stretch of the Atlantic is called Broadhaven. Nice full screen.

Enjoy your weekend.

Blacksod Lighthouse

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 05:55:22 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Our trip to this end of the Belmullet peninsular gives us a look at the harbour (pip) and its unique castellated granite lighthouse. Through automation the lighthouse keepers have left but it is still open to visitors on appointment.
A 150-year-old lighthouse, it sits resolute at the end of Blacksod’s working pier, where the catch of the day will always include wild Atlantic lobster. The area boasts jaw-dropping scenery and offers sanctuary for Irish whales and dolphins.
In 1969 a man named Tom McClean rowed from Newfoundland to Blacksod Bay. He used the telephone in Blacksod Lighthouse to phone his sponsors, Gilette Razor Company. As part of his sponsorship deal he was to appear cleanly shaven when meeting the press at Blacksod Pier!
www.greatlighthouses.com/lighthouses/blacksod-lighthouse

Enjoy full screen.

Blacksod Harbour scene

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 06:45:58 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

A busy view of this working harbour located on the Belmullet Peninsular, Ireland in Blacksod Bay. Of course fences abound in such places. A miserable weather start to our day in this remote spot but it was to improve. In the background stands the old lighthouse. Just to the right, out of shot is still some evidence of the old whaling station (Blacksod Whaling Co ) that used to be located here (see pip). It was active from 1900 till 1925 as Blacksod Bay is the nearest point in Ireland to the continental shelf edge and the abysmal plain. Around 800 whales where harpooned and brought here and its main site on the nearby Island of Rusheen for processing.

More info: www.marinetours.ie/wildlife-log/64-captain-whalesgalore-wonderful-winter-wildlife-log.html

Enjoy the weekend.

ps another phone photo, as my many DSLR photos did not capture all this at quite the same p.o.v.

Blacksod Whaling past

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 06:45:56 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Lying just about 50 metres away from the harbour we see this. We were informed that this was used in the whaling operations that was quite intensive here almost 100 years ago. As to its real use in that operation, one can only guess. Apart from an old winch nearby, there seems little else but long forgotten memories about all this.

See next photo for more info and harbour scene.

Peat harvesting in County Mayo

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 07:27:33 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

As we continue our home stretch of this ‘Children of Lir Loop walk’ we witness more evidence of this traditional custom in this part of Ireland. Peat harvesting has been carried out here for millennium, originally as fuel for local home heating and cooking but more recently as big business for use in horticulture.
We see here a tractor helping in digging rows of shallow trenches, where the brick-sods are cut out (slices of peat) and laid in rows on the surface nearby, in order to dry. You can see on here the outline of many years of peat harvesting covering the whole area. As we walked past dwelling, we could see many piles of these peat sods under canvas or shelters ready to be burned indoors. Even before seeing all that, you could smell the very distinctive aroma of burned peat.
The Pip (last photo) shows a similar bog field just some 20 miles away.

Nowadays, with the sure knowledge of climate change it is recognised that these wetland peat bogs, often many thousands of years old are great reservoirs of carbon and the harvesting of peat emits greenhouse gases by releasing that carbon. In that respect there are plans afoot to halt all commercial cutting. See link: www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/ireland-closes-peat-bogs-climate-change

See last photo for a little more info.

Peat harvesting

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 07:27:32 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

County Mayo

Although commercial peat harvesting in Ireland is (or is almost) banned, we see here the obvious signs of harvesting on a big scale. In the background are big piles of white plastic bags holding the peat bricks (sods), ready for transportation.

~ Peat bogs grow slowly, accumulating around 0.5 to 1 mm of peat each year, and the water prevents the plants from decomposing. As a result, many areas of UK (and Irish) peat bog have been accumulating gradually for as much as 10,000 years, and can be up to 10m deep.

Nb The Pennine moorland tops, we see from our house (in the UK) is largely composed of peat too.

See next photo

The Children of Lir sculpture

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 08:24:27 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Having walked along the sea-cliffs of this 'Children of Lir' loop (just beyond the top edge here), we come finally to a strange structure, namely the ‘Children of Lir’ sculpture. In truth we knew this was here as it denoted our turn-around point but we expected something more in the way of a ‘traditional’ sculpture. We found nothing explaining how these walls and bits represented elements of the story:

The Children of Lir sculpture - one of a series from the Spirit of Place Sculpture Trail which centres on culturally-distinct, historic, unspoiled and isolated regions around the world. The sculpture has significance to this area from where thousands of people have emigrated in the past to all parts of the world – bringing with them a strong spirit of place – but never to return.

The legend of The Children of Lir tells the tale of children who were turned into swans and condemned to wander the countryside for 900 years, 300 of these were spent on the north Mayo Island, Inishglora, 300 on Lough Derravaragh and 300 years in the Sea of Moyle (above County Antrim) .
More info on the legend: www.irishcentral.com/roots/irish-myth-children-lir-swan-lake

We were to visit the northern spot with another storyboard near Bushmills on our second week here. Inishglora Isand can just about be seen (I think) in the PiP photo.

Have a good day.

HBM ~ Deirbhile's Twist picnic spot

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 06:20:44 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

We are on the Belmulet peninsula here not far from Blacksod. We come by a fascinating Stonehenge look-alike called Deirbhile's Twist. The village is called An Fál Mór (Fallmore).

Please see the preceding photo for description of that.

ps The big wavy metal object is a sign denoting the 'Wild Atlantic Way': 'The Wild Atlantic Way is a tourism trail on the west coast, and on parts of the north and south coasts, of Ireland. The 2,500 km (1600m) driving route passes through nine counties and three provinces, stretching from County Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula in Ulster to Kinsale, County Cork, in Munster, on the Celtic Sea coast.'. Wiki

** Keep cool in this dangerous heat today ! **

Deirbhile's Twist

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 06:20:42 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

The stone circle made by artist Michael Boffin in 1993 from local granite stones in form of a twist erected with 22 stepping stones leading up to it. This is near the village of Fallmore (An Fál Mór) on the Belmullet Peninsular . It is the Last part of the sculpture trail through North Mayo to commemorate Mayo 5000.

See PiPs.

The Deirbhile's Twist

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 06:20:41 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

Stone circle made by artist Michael Boffin in 1993 from local granite stones in form of a twist erected with 22 stepping stones leading up to it. This is near the village of Fallmore (An Fál Mór) on the Belmullet Peninsular . It is the Last part of the sculpture trail through North Mayo to commemorate Mayo 5000.

The Stags of Broadhaven and Benween Head

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 07:42:36 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

We are getting to our northern end of The Children of Lir Loop walk now with evermore closer looks at the Stags. We have now co-joined another bigger loop walk called the Portacloy Cliff walk. Benween Head is the headland we see here on the right.

See last photo for alternative view and description.

Nice full size.

The Children of Lir Loop walk: Stags of Broadhaven

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 07:21:48 +0000

Herb Riddle has posted:

We are getting to our northern end of the loop now with evermore closer looks at the Stags. We have now co-joined another bigger loop walk called Portacloy.

They are in fact bigger than they look on here at around 3km from where I am standing. An Archipelago of five steep rocks with Teach Dónal ÓCléirigh rising to a height of 97m above the Atlantic Ocean. A closer look is by far best undertaken by kayak though and some people do try to land and climb them. They are completely uninhabited both by man and sheep.

See Pip or next photo for another view and description.

The Children of Lir Loop walk: Kidd Island

nobody@ipernity.com (Herb Riddle) — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 06:40:43 +0000

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As we continue up this rugged coast we see one of a few characteristic Islands just offshore. This is Kidd Island covering just 32 acres. I believe flocks of sheep graze on here in summer but we never saw any and the mind boggles to how they would get on there with those sheer rocky cliffs.

Oops, I must correct myself: the white spots on the the left of the Island are indeed sheep (as seen on my sharper full size original).

NB there is a another smaller nameless rock in front of Kidd Island here.

Enjoy full screen.