MAYO.MEExploring the beauty of County Mayo, Ireland
We had a magical start to our journey to the Inishkea Islands from Blacksod. Shortly after leaving the harbour, we were joined by a school of playful dolphins swimming alongside and in front of the boat escorting us into the broad waters of the bay.
It’s early July and the tall and elegant foxgloves are in bloom along hedgerows and wild places all over Mayo. Its bright purple, bell-like flowers make the foxglove one of the most imposing and opulent of all our native wildflowers and its medicinal properties are used to treat heart failure.
The words hauntingly beautiful perfectly describe the Doolough Valley, evoking the natural wonder of this remote glacial scene of towering mountains and brooding lake that is forever scarred by the memory of the men, women and children who were left to die there during the Great Famine.
If there was a competition for the most beautiful wall in Mayo surely it would be hard to beat the dry stone wall at the entrance to Enniscoe House and Gardens nature trail when the fairy foxglove turns the structure into a vertical flower garden in early summer.
That lovely blue haze returned to Belleek Wood at Easter. The bluebells in bloom along the Fairy Trail burst into life at the first hint of spring warmth. A flood of native bluebells hazed the vista in a misty blue cloud along the winding forest trail; a scene that spoke of a timeless and magical […]
We miss so much that past generations loved – the walk along a quiet country road or boreen. Following the green line as I like to call it – that mossy band of worn grass flecked with cheerful daisies unfolding down the centre of the quiet byway inviting the walker to stroll further into the […]
When James Henry Casserly who was the first Station Master in Killala Railway Station was leaving in 1894, the people of Killala and Ballycastle came together to present him with a pocket watch as a token of the high esteem in which the community held the Galway native.
March brings both the promise of summer and sharp reminders of winter. Icy cold north westerlies, not unexpected here in mid-March, brought snow to the mountain tops ahead of Storm Gareth. And so an unusually mild winter gave way to three days of mad March weather.
It’s early March and Nephin is snow-capped once more. But just a few days ago February borrowed from early summer to present us with a delightful week of warm sunshine.
Hunched down, seeking shelter behind a tall boulder from the bitingly cold wind and rain, I watched the surfers, a few hundred metres off Kilcummin pier, bobbing up and down in a wild sea – their chase for the perfect wave had brought them to North Mayo.
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