Spectacular Ireland

Spectacular Ireland is down the west coast and most spectacular of all is Skellig Michael. As the boat travels towards it, the gannets drifting to and fro in the foreground give it an air of enchantment. By the time you get there you are prepared for the magic and it doesn’t disappoint. See it in July before the puffins leave. Thanks to harniq for posting this on YouTube.


I was taking a trawl through movies about the islands off the west thinking it’s high time I went back when this caught my eye. There is some disagreement as to whether the Aran Mór island cliffs or those at Slieve League in Donegal are the highest in North West Europe. Either way the nerve needed to do this is mind-boggling.

Cloverhill Church

We had spent the day touring around Mayo and Galway and were now nearly back in Roscommon town when the driver slammed on the breaks and reversed. He took out his camera for the first time that day and took a photo of Cloverhill church at the end of a yew-lined road. I had passed it a hundred times over the years and missed the beauty. It was a useful lesson for a poet, it doesn’t have to be grand-scale to be stunning; Georgia O’Keeffe would have told me that.

I remembered that just as I was about to write about Skellig Michael. Nothing small-scale there, one of the most spectacular places on the planet and a world heritage site. Worth mentioning that this is a good month to go as the puffins will have left Skellig by August.

I was going to post a video from Youtube with this post but it can't be done so I recommend strongly that you check out the video, Georgia O'Keeffe's Flowers; it's worth it. Instead, for a badly needed bit of colour, I'm putting in the Laburnum filling my bedroom window in May; I think Georgia would approve.