To see the landscape of Tuscany for the first time is like looking at the Old Masters; only they have been cleaned and are life-size. To see the lakes of Killarney for the first time is to realise that this haunting luxuriance of mountain, waterfall,...
A market town on the River Suir, long associated with the Butler family, later Earls of Ormond. A priory was established at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century for the canons regular of St Augustine. Later the lands formed part...
The Easter Rising of 1916 was a curious event, tiny in comparison with the rebellion of 1798, for instance, with only about 2000 people actively taking part in it. It was disastrously badly organised and commanded very little public support, but its martyred hero’s glow...
Basking on the shores of Loch Linnhe amid magnificent mountain scenery, Fort William has one of the most enviable settings in the whole of Scotland. Magical Glen Nevis begins near the northern end of the town and wraps itself around the southern flank of Ben Nevis...
Loughside, mid-way up the western shore is Sketrick Castle. This large, four storey tower house guarded the causeway to Sketrick Island and was actively involved in warfare in the 16th century. The immediacy and need for the defence is vitally evident in this watery landscape....
Kerry has a clean beauty of bone about it denied to the other more fleshy counties of Ireland, for although this southwest corner was notably glaciated in the Ice Age it was not overcoated by Drift to the same extent. Clear hard outlines and boldly-drawn...
The roadless island of Canna is a moorland plateau of black basalt rock, just 5 miles long and 1.25 miles wide. Compass Hill (143m), at the north-eastern corner, contains enough magnetite (an iron oxide material) to deflect the navigation compasses in passing yachts. The ferry arrives...
County Wicklow, with its moorland wastes and bare granite hills has a wealth of lovely valley, wooded glen, and smoking waterfall. Dean Swift likened it to “a frieze mantle fringed with gold lace”. Much of the coastland is low, being a drift covered plain, fringed...
"Sing the peasantry and then Hard-riding country gentlemen" County Meath – known as “royal Meath” from its ancient connection and the Kings of Tara – is a country of democratically level pastures, royally rich grasslands, slow rivers and humid airs. Its wide fields are necessarily intersected by...
Errigal (2466ft) is the tallest peak in the ice-carved Donegal Highlands. With its furrowed sides and the white screes of broken quartz it is far and away the finest of all conical mountains in Ireland. It is best approached by way of Dunlewy and one...