Something Beautiful

Rock of Cashel

This photo was taken on the famous Rock of Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.   

The same photographer offers three photos of Irish National Park at Killarney, Co. Kerry. 

My beloved Ireland

The photo blog North Atlantic Skyline has some beautiful photographs of Ireland. 

Here's one -- Clew Bay .

And here's another that is not precisely beautiful, but is so painfully poignant that it approaches that it comes strangely close -- a deer.

A few more --

wren;

Killary Harbor;

Doolin.

Bit of Ireland

This photo of Ross Errily Friary is quite the magic carpet - it transports me immediately to my beloved Ireland. 

Aran Island Scene

This photograph was taken on one of the Aran islands (probably Inish mor).    Here are the photographer's other Aran island photos.

Great Blasket Island

I've been doing some research on the Blasket Islands, a small group of small islands off the southwest coast of Ireland.   They are no longer inhabited by human beings, but remain an object of great interest to the outside world.  Here are some photographs I was lucky enough to come across.    

Father Browne's photos

Father Francis Browne (1880-1960) was an Irish Jesuit priest who was discovered, years after his death, to have taken a treasure trove of unknown, unappreciated, but extremely valuable photographs of Ireland.   

You can see a few of his photos at theFather Browne  website.    Here are the pages specifically devoted to Irish subjects --

Irish Life (17 photos) 

Irish Trades (9 photos) 

Dublin scenes (12 photos) 

John McGahern

Excerpt from John McGahern's new Memoir. 

My own experience of Ireland is embodied in this paragraph --

I am sure it is from those days that I take the belief that the best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.

Hunt Museum

Today being St. Patrick's Day, it seems only right to focus on an Irish website.  Herewith, then, the Hunt Museum site.  The Hunt Museum is in Limerick, on Ireland's southwest coast. 

The site has some worthwhile pages.  First among these would be the Director's choice page (7 items).  

Next would come the Paintings and drawings page (5 items).

And then these five remaining pages --

Ceramics (6 items)

Ivory and other materials (5 items); 

Metal (6 items)

Stone (5 items)

Textiles (4 items)

The Isle of Inisfree

William Butler Yeats wrote of a real lake island in his famous poem The Isle of Inisfree. This small island lies in the south-east corner of Lough Gill, in County Sligo. 

(Note: I know that Yeats spelled the word "Innisfree."   I have amended that spelling because the name comes from the Irish inis, meaning "island."  It is sometimes also spelled "Inishfree" or "Innishfree.")   

Aran Islands

I mentioned John Millington Synge a couple of days ago and it only occurred to me later that I had not said why Synge is so important to me.   There is but one reason for that and it is his book The Aran Islands, based on his visits to those islands ca. 1900.  Somehow or other I came across this book while in college, and immediately fell in love.  On the Net, you can get a feel for how the Aran Islands look at the Look Aroujd Ireland site.   Check out their twelve IPIX images too, four for each of the three Aran islands.

Better still are the photos over at Photo Voyage.  There you'll find 35 pictures of the islands, some of them excellent.   I particularly recommend those under the heading "Landscape."