We drove thru Connemara to Leeanne to take a catamaran cruise of Killary Fjord. The day started out beautiful, but by the end of the cruise, it was a little chilly and cloudy. The Fjord is almost 46,000' long, 2300' wide and at its deepest, 140'. It spans 2 counties, Galway Co. is on the south shore, Mayo Co is on the north shore. The geology of the shorelines differ, the North shore was formed 490-640 million years ago and has Ordovician gritstone, shales and volcanic rocks. The southern shore was formed 420 million years ago and is made up of Silurian sandstone and mudstone.
The North shore
The Southern shore, notice the difference. The lines you see are fences built entirely of rocks. Western Ireland is very rocky. To do any farming, people had to remove the rocks. There was so many that, that was what they used to build fences. These rock fences are all over Ireland. Can't imagine the work of carrying all the rocks up hillsides to form the fences. The brown spots all over the landscape are where they used to grow potatoes. Eventho Ireland is known for potatoes, they haven't really grown potatoes since the Great Potato Famine and Migration out of Ireland
The lines that are in the water are fields of mussels.
No comments:
Post a Comment