Do you appreciate Ireland's natural beauty?

thelad95

As the title says, Ireland is often heralded as one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but do you admire Ireland's beauty?

Personally, I find it a bit meh. I've done the Ring of Kerry, seen the Burren and spent time in Connemara and wasn't really impressed overall. Or is it just that it's hard to appreciate what's on your doorstep?

Alf. A. Male

thelad95 wrote: »

. I've done the Ring of Kerry, seen the Burren and spent time in Connemara and wasn't really impressed overall. Or is it just that it's hard to appreciate what's on your doorstep?

That's some size of a doorstep.

GAAman

Funny, at the weekend I went to Mayo and on the journey was reminded of how spectacular the North West/West coast of Ireland is.

Buzz Killington the third

People who talk about "Ireland's natural beauty" must have never seen a field or mountain before. There's nothing really special here.

wretcheddomain

The thread title is referring to Joan Burton, right?

nelly17

wretcheddomain wrote: »

The thread title is referring to Joan Burton, right?

Nah Mary Harney

FTA69

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

There's nothing really special here.

Is that why people come from all over the world to see it? Jesus, I know people like to have a pop at the state the country is in but to deny that Ireland is home to immense beauty is b*llocks of the highest order.

Mr. CooL ICE

I love driving through west Cork and around the arse ends of Clare, looking at houses and walls and stuff. The sheer amount of structures made with stonework is beautiful IMO. They really are products of their environment.

Buzz Killington the third

FTA69 wrote: »

Is that why people come from all over the world to see it?

They mostly come for the heritage and history, not the scenery. They could go to Scotland too but they don't.

FTA69

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

They mostly come for the heritage and history, not the scenery.

Is that why places like south Kerry and Clare and west Cork are immensely popular with tourists? Not to mention the huge industry we have around outdoor activities and things like fishing.

Bummer1234

She's a fine looking country...I remember been down in kerry one summer and honestly i wasn't surprised there were so many tourists as some of the view are spectacular.

Lyaiera

I'd love to cycle around Ireland, taking time to take in the beauty. I think the country is gorgeous. Someday I'll have the money to.

AnonoBoy

I appreciate the natural beauty all around me.

Phhhwooooarrrrrr!

Check out the Ring of Kerry on yer man!

Buzz Killington the third

FTA69 wrote: »

Is that why places like south Kerry and Clare and west Cork are immensely popular with tourists? Not to mention the huge industry we have around outdoor activities and things like fishing.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I find the country very bland myself.

hoodwinked

i think what ireland does have is its size, being so small, its nice being able to stand in the middle of a city street admiring the clear blue sky above the buildings and less than an hour later be walking along the coast watching the sun set into the ocean,

something very lovely about the natural beauty of being able to do that.

FTA69

Well when I'm face-to-armpit next to some sweaty bastard on a packed Tube full of irritable c*nts, or watching two Somali crackheads scream at each other over the contents of a skip - I really get to missing the old scenery myself.

There's some days I'd give my left ball to be standing on a rock casting for mackerel.

danniemcq

I lose sight of whats around me the odd time. then i'll be travelling somewhere and the sun comes out and i realise that yes this is a fecking beautiful country

Take Portsalon beach for instance

http://www.fotothing.com/photos/c04/c04547cb249762dcff0a042b507cf13a_c7c.jpg

the coast road to their is amazing (have a look on youtube for Knockalla at work so can't link if you really care you'll should see in car rally footage) In Kerry last year done the ring and that was class (although i was quite tipsy which may have helped). when i lived in Galway I used to just go on cycles anywhere and see what was around.

The danger is taking it all for granted, you see the same thing day after day no matter how amazed you are at the start it will lose its appeal.

Or you might not be into that kinda stuff but i'd take here over the flat lands of europe or the arid plains of the med

Donkey Oaty

Fáilte Ireland survey 2010:

Overall the most popular reasons given for visiting Ireland were:

Friendly, hospitable people 90%

Beautiful Scenery 89%

Safe and Secure Destination 83%

Plenty of Things to See and Do 82%

Natural, unspoilt environment 80%.

Tsar Chasim

I was brought up on summer holidays touring Ireland.... Staycations as the knobs call it.

Absolutely love the place. I live in Kildare now and love the drive home. There's one final view from the hill before I get into my village where I can see Dublin Bay to the left, The Dublin mountains & Kildare out in front with the sugarloaf in the background and Offaly & Meath to the right... just beautiful undulating fields and hills. Makes the commute worth it!

The Backwards Man

Every day.

Too hazy at the minute for a pic, but everyone should see what I'm looking at right now.

And spend a euro or two while they are here.

GAAman

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Every day.

Too hazy at the minute for a pic, but everyone should see what I'm looking at right now.

And spend a euro or two while they are here.

Gigolo business going well then?

PizzamanIRL

We officially have too many Ireland threads on the first page.

Yamanoto

FTA69 wrote: »

Is that why people come from all over the world to see it? Jesus, I know people like to have a pop at the state the country is in but to deny that Ireland is home to immense beauty is b*llocks of the highest order.

We do have a reputation as being a place of great natural beauty alright, though I could think of a fair number of European countries with more to offer in terms of jaw dropping scenery. I think it's a combination of the people and the place in particular that really endears folks to Ireland though & that's what makes it a great destination for many.

dutopia

I think there's nothing particularly 'impressive' in terms of size or scale in Ireland (with exception to cliffs such as the cliffs of Moher) but overall the landscapes are beautiful and unspoiled.

corcaigh07

hoodwinked wrote: »

i think what ireland does have is its size, being so small, its nice being able to stand in the middle of a city street admiring the clear blue sky above the buildings and less than an hour later be walking along the coast watching the sun set into the ocean,

something very lovely about the natural beauty of being able to do that.

agree with this, I was in Canada and in my eyes, some of their scenery in the Rockies blows away anything here. Our 'smallness' is a great advantage for bus tours and such, they can see most of the country in a week

darkpagandeath

Our scenery is just different, People like to see stone walls fields and one off's and think that's what the whole of Ireland is like. White house's with thatched roofs, Idealised unspoilt rural country. And are people forgetting a lot of our tourist are looking for Irish ancestors major reason they come. But people need to weigh up this to the march of technology. If we try to keep to much unspoilt countryside we will fast roll back to a 3rd world country. Not be able to compete with other countries and what tech companies we have here will move. Stable power grid and running water for example.

The J Stands for Jay

dutopia wrote: »

I think there's nothing particularly 'impressive' in terms of size or scale in Ireland (with exception to cliffs such as the cliffs of Moher) but overall the landscapes are beautiful and unspoiled.

Not even the highest (or most impressive) cliffs in Ireland.

danniemcq

McGaggs wrote: »

Not even the highest (or most impressive) cliffs in Ireland.

G'wan Donegal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slieve_League

RoiSoleil

The natural beauty in Ireland may not be on the scale of some places around the world but that does not make it any less beautiful.

darkpagandeath

RoiSoleil wrote: »

The natural beauty in Ireland may not be on the scale of some places around the world but that does not make it any less beautiful.

True, But some people would have us all move out of the city's back onto farms. To become some kind of nature preserve so other countries can come and visit. And say this is how people use to live hundreds of years ago. Most other countries have a happy medium of rural/city

BeerWolf

Prefer Canada tbh - Forests vs HILLS HILLS AND MORE HILLS any day.

LizzieJones

BeerWolf wrote: »

Prefer Canada tbh - Forests vs HILLS HILLS AND MORE HILLS any day.

Not from where I am sitting. One mile from Lake Ontario and it is as flat as a pancake.

Mahogany Gaspipe

danniemcq wrote: »

G'wan Donegal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slieve_League

I'm afraid the cliffs at Achill Island, Co. Mayo has your Donegal cliffs well beaten in terms of height!

bnt

I know Ireland has quite a bit of natural beauty outside Dublin, but you have to travel quite a way to see it. I don't drive, so I've looked in to getting to the Ring of Kerry by public transport: the time and cost involved is off-putting, and what if I go to all that trouble and the weather is horrid? To make matters worse: it would involve a long coach ride on Irish roads, which is a problem for me: I get carsick. So it's rail as far as possible, for me. But the Greystones - Bray walk is nice.

ChippingSodbury

Took this photo on Saturday just gone...

Hard to beat on a sunny day!

pickarooney

I would love to have some Irish beaches. But with Mediterranean water. I love it when I go back but it is kind of samey.

Pherekydes

thelad95 wrote: »

...what's on your doorstep?

My garden. A thing of rare and unusual beauty. People come from far and wide to inspect it. Mostly county council workers.

Riddle101

I appreciative Ireland's natural beauty. It's one of the great things about Ireland I think.

danniemcq

Mahogany Gaspipe wrote: »

I'm afraid the cliffs at Achill Island, Co. Mayo has your Donegal cliffs well beaten in terms of height!

nah sure those things are like hills

plus "Depending on how you define sea cliffs, Achill Island’s Croaghaun Mountain could hold the title of the highest in Europe. At over 600m"

"Slieve Liag (Irish: Sliabh Liag),[1] is a mountain on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, Ireland. At 601 metres (1,972 ft)"

Ours are proper cliffs like!

dee_mc

I work in a shop almost exclusively used by tourists, and every day they come in brimming with excitement about the unspoilt natural beauty of the area, the sheer scale of the Burren, the abundance of brightly coloured wildflowers, the height of the Cliffs of Moher (OK, not the highest in Ireland but the ones most people have heard of, and come to see)... It really would do a lot of Irish people some good to hear the foreign visitors talking about our country, the childlike wonder and enthusiasm makes me smile every time

jiltloop

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I find the country very bland myself.

Have you ever properly explored the countryside? I don't mean driving along roads. Do some hill walking around Killarney, go see the Skellig Islands, the Burren, the West coast....... etc etc there's incredible beauty in Ireland.

Where in the world would you class as beautiful?

ScumLord

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Natural, unspoilt environment 80%.

Ireland can be a very beautiful country, I think even in the mist and rain it has something about it you just don't get anywhere else, but this idea that Ireland is a natural and unspoilt environment is just nonsense.

It's all just farm land, everything natural has been stripped away for food production, in reality this is an island that's been completely ravaged by human industry, it's just been that way for a long time. There's very little left in the way of unspoilt beauty and underneath the nice looking scenery there's horrible abuse of it through pollution and very little consideration for what wildlife has survived humans turning up on the island.

That's why I like it in the rain, the misery of it seems fitting for the damage we're doing to the land that sustains us.

Mahogany Gaspipe

ScumLord wrote: »

Ireland can be a very beautiful country, I think even in the mist and rain it has something about it you just don't get anywhere else, but this idea that Ireland is a natural and unspoilt environment is just nonsense.

It's all just farm land, everything natural has been stripped away for food production, in reality this is an island that's been completely ravaged by human industry, it's just been that way for a long time. There's very little left in the way of unspoilt beauty and underneath the nice looking scenery there's horrible abuse of it through pollution and very little consideration for what wildlife has survived humans turning up on the island.

That's why I like it in the rain, the misery of it seems fitting for the damage we're doing to the land that sustains us.

Yeah, industry scale agriculture in the productive mountains of Connemara.

ScumLord

Mahogany Gaspipe wrote: »

Yeah, industry scale agriculture in the productive mountains of Connemara.

Connemara is a prime example of human interference. All those stone walls trying to make land suitable for agriculture.

thelad95

The small bit of land that can be used for agriculture in Connemara has been extensively overcropped and overgrazed. Connemara will remain unspoilt for some time I reckon, the land is so rocky that construction costs would be too high to bother, meaning any wide-scale industrialisation is unlikely.

darkpagandeath

thelad95 wrote: »

The small bit of land that can be used for agriculture in Connemara has been extensively overcropped and overgrazed. Connemara will remain unspoilt for some time I reckon, the land is so rocky that construction costs would be too high to bother, meaning any wide-scale industrialisation is unlikely.

Were did all the forests go ? People like to think the land has not been changed and it was always like that. Fields are a dead giveaway of large scale man made interference that and no forests. There has been mass deforestation on this Island granted in the past but still not a natural landscape now.

Mahogany Gaspipe

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Were did all the forests go ? People like to think the land has not been changed and it was always like that. Fields are a dead giveaway of large scale man made interference that and no forests. There has been mass deforestation on this Island granted in the past but still not a natural landscape now.

Were the mountains of Connemara forested at any stage?

Conmaicne Mara

thelad95 wrote: »

The small bit of land that can be used for agriculture in Connemara has been extensively overcropped and overgrazed.

Would you mind explaining this theory further?

Mahogany Gaspipe

ScumLord wrote: »

Connemara is a prime example of human interference. All those stone walls trying to make land suitable for agriculture.

In fairness the mountains of north Connemara and south Mayo have few and far stone walls

darkpagandeath

Mahogany Gaspipe wrote: »

Were the mountains of Connemara forested at any stage?

Was the whole place not a huge forest at one stage ? Not a stretch to think deforestation, and the landscape we have now is mostly unnatural. Just been like that for thousands of years, yes sounds a long time but not in geological terms forested up to quite recently if you think in them terms.

WoollyRedHat

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

We officially have too many Ireland threads on the first page.

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