Based on a recommendation from Rick Steve’s Ireland book, we booked a guided walk with Shane Connolly in Ballyvaughan. We met at the Ballyvaughan church parking lot at 10 AM. There were 5 others (besides Shane and us) on the walk — a botanist and his wife and adult daughter from Holland, Bridget from the midlands of Ireland, and Freddie from Canada.
But first, a word about the Burren. Basically, the Burren is the exposed limestone that is under all of Ireland — ancient seabed wiped by glaciers. When the trees were cut by man there was nothing to hold the limited topsoil so it was washed away exposing the limestone. With the acid rain hitting the basic rock huge channels were created in the stone. Now as trees are being allowed to return to the area topsoil is also staying and supporting a unique plant system. The botanist was in heaven. You’ll find Mediterranean and Arctic wildflowers side-by-side. It’s a unique moon-like landscape. The area has been farmed (cattle/sheep) for years and stone walls and ruined buildings can be found.
We headed by car to Black Head to start our journey. Once there, after picking a walking stick (very necessary!) from Shane’s lot we headed up. Our walk would take us up 646 feet. Our pictures show some of the flowers and the landscape. We were blessed with amazing weather. It was a clear warm day. In fact, in our 2 weeks it never rained except for a light drizzle one morning. We had very unusual weather for Ireland. Hence, I was ill prepared for a sunny walk — no sun screen and no hat. This oversight would prove costly as Day 6 is the sick day.
The Burren was an amazing landscape. It’s hard to capture in pictures but the video might prove better. Our walk started up a relatively grassy part with many stone walls. We had a beautiful view of Galway Bay and you can see here the ground was starting to have some large exposed limestone. We made out way up gradually on an old old road. The walking was easy and we stopped to look at many wildflowers. We also walked past fields still in use today. The land above us was more rocky and you can see the stone walls dividing the hillside. We came across the ruins of a house from many years ago. Prior to the famine this area had a few thousand people. Now it has under a thousand. You could tell by Shane’s voice that the famine still stirs strong emotions today. As we headed up the walking became more rocky.
This video shows how it was walking on the limestone. The stone sounded really hollow as our sticks hit it. You’ll notice that I’m looking down continuously in the video. Shane warned us to keep our heads down and our minds on what were doing. The limestone is full of cracks and crevasses and it would be easy to trip and fall and really hurt yourself. You can also hear how windy it was.
Then we reached the dung holder. It was a basic arrangement of rocks to hold the dried dung that was used for fuel. The Burren is very barren (no peat bogs or turf) and people had to do what the had to to survive. This video panorama gives you an idea of the incredible landscape we were walking over.
Shane gave us a common sense lesson in figuring out the age of the walls. Take this picture, which wall is older? The one going from the right to the background? Or the one coming from the left to the middle of the shot? The first one is more likely older because the second one clearly stops when it reaches the first one. If the first one wasn’t there first, why would the second one bother to stop at it?
Then we came to a round fort which are found around the Burren. There’s not much left and Shane noted that with the increased tourism there is less every year. The tourists tend to climb up on the walls which hastens their collapse. This video shows our entrance into the fort.
Then we started our descent. You can see how the stone walls went right up the sides of the hill.
Our last stop was a bronze age rubbish pile or cooking pile. These tend to be found near a source of water. People would heat rocks in a fire and drop them in the water to rapidly cool them. This made them easier to work with. You can sometimes find stones there that you can break in your hand. The mound or pile is just all of the discarded rock bits, bones, and food trash from their cooking. One mound was analyzed and had 95% cattle bones indicating the diet of the bronze age peoples here.
We reached the bottom between 2 and 3 pm. This was an amazing walk and perhaps the best thing we did in the whole trip. It was such a personal experience with a small group and Shane guiding us. He knows everything about the Burren and we had lessons in botany, geology, and history. This is a MUST for anyone going to the west of Ireland. Exhausted we headed back to Galway for dinner. Little did I know that the nearly 5 hours of sun exposure on an amazingly clear day would make me sick in the evening and all of Day 6.
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