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Do you appreciate Ireland's natural beauty?

2

Comments

  • #32
    LizzieJones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,459 ✭✭✭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. :)


  • #33
    Mahogany Gaspipe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 334 ✭✭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!


  • #34
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,244 ✭✭✭✭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. :o

    Government resting upon the will and universal suffrage of the people has no anchorage except in the people's intelligence.

    — Grover Cleveland



  • #35
    ChippingSodbury
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,396 ✭✭✭ChippingSodbury


    Took this photo on Saturday just gone...

    Hard to beat on a sunny day!


  • #36
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 36,496 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.


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  • #37
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,339 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #38
    Riddle101
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,669 ✭✭✭Riddle101


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


  • #39
    danniemcq
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,163 ✭✭✭✭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!


  • #40
    dee_mc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,246 ✭✭✭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 :)


  • #41
    jiltloop
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,292 ✭✭✭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?


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  • #42
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,787 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #43
    Mahogany Gaspipe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 334 ✭✭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.


  • #44
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,787 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #45
    thelad95
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,812 ✭✭✭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.


  • #46
    darkpagandeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,461 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #47
    Mahogany Gaspipe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 334 ✭✭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?


  • #48
    Conmaicne Mara
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,543 ✭✭✭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?


  • #49
    Mahogany Gaspipe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 334 ✭✭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


  • #50
    darkpagandeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,461 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #51
    WoollyRedHat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    PizzamanIRL wrote: »
    We officially have too many Ireland threads on the first page.

    Your notification has been passed on to the U.N for consideration. Thank you.


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  • #52
    Capercaille
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Capercaille


    Donkey Oaty wrote: »

    Natural, unspoilt environment 80%.
    Country denuded of native forests, only 1% native cover. Most of wetlands gone. The last of the raised bogs being destroyed as we speak. The lowest number of breeding raptors in Europe. Monoculture of ryegrass in most farming land. Silence at night: most of the corncrake, curlew, barn owls gone.


  • #53
    dee_mc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,246 ✭✭✭dee_mc


    Capercaille wrote: »
    Country denuded of native forests, only 1% native cover. Most of wetlands gone. The last of the raised bogs being destroyed as we speak. The lowest number of breeding raptors in Europe. Monoculture of ryegrass in most farming land. Silence at night: most of the corncrake, curlew, barn owls gone.

    Not having witnessed any of this in its original state, most tourists are unconcerned by these points. To the uneducated visitor (and to me), Ireland appears beautiful and unspoilt.


  • #54
    Fat Christy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,866 ✭✭✭Fat Christy


    I only really started to appreciate Ireland's scenery in the last year. What I'm studying at the moment takes me all over Ireland and I started hillwalking/hiking just after Christmas. There is some lovely unspoilt areas in Ireland with amazing views! We really don't appreciate our climate and the landscape it creates and preserves. I live in Dublin and a 20 minute drive or less takes me to some really beautiful places.

    The only problem with Ireland is it's full of fecking whingebags. If it's not the weather, it's the guberment, or the traffic, no jobs, recessions, water meters, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses. I think I was pretty lucky to be born in this beautiful country!! Yes it has some negative aspects but you can't have it every way!


  • #55
    Shakespeare's Sister
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,412 ✭✭✭Shakespeare's Sister


    Buzz Killington the third wrote: »
    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... I find the country very bland myself.
    How much of it have you travelled? The countryside near where I live is no big deal to me as I see it regularly, but heading off to anywhere along the west coast - from West Cork to Donegal - is like entering another world in parts.
    I don't know the east coast so can't comment on that, but I believe Waterford is beautiful, as is Antrim.
    Inland, along the River Blackwater and Lough Derg are absolutely stunning.


  • #56
    LizzieJones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,459 ✭✭✭LizzieJones


    What I love about Ireland (so far although I have never been there...yet) is that the country is so small that the whole of it will easily fit into the province that I currently live in (Ontario) and there is LOTS of Ontario left over..

    Does that mean (when I do finally get there) that I can see the entire country during the better part of an afternoon? ;)


  • #57
    Capercaille
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Capercaille


    Conmaicne Mara wrote: »
    Would you mind explaining this theory further?
    EU headage payments encouraged farmers to overgraze and destroy the landscape. You should know that.


  • #58
    Cienciano
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,208 ✭✭✭✭Cienciano


    danniemcq wrote: »
    G'wan Donegal!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slieve_League
    Mahogany Gaspipe wrote: »
    I'm afraid the cliffs at Achill Island, Co. Mayo has your Donegal cliffs well beaten in terms of height!

    Yeah, Achill ones are higher, I notice the slieve league wiki page says "highest cliffs on the island of ireland". Achill being an Island don't count then!
    But Slieve League are bloody amazing, and you can drive up to the car park and be the only car there. I love Donegal, the most spectacular County in Ireland by a long way imho. Here's a main road in Donegal: http://goo.gl/maps/zDHRY


  • #59
    Capercaille
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Capercaille


    Cienciano wrote: »
    Yeah, Achill ones are higher, I notice the slieve league wiki page says "highest cliffs on the island of ireland". Achill being an Island don't count then!
    But Slieve League are bloody amazing, and you can drive up to the car park and be the only car there. I love Donegal, the most spectacular County in Ireland by a long way imho. Here's a main road in Donegal: http://goo.gl/maps/zDHRY
    Non-native conifer plantation on left, not that nice.


  • #60
    Legs.Eleven
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,987 ✭✭✭Legs.Eleven


    Lyaiera wrote: »
    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.

    Do you reckon it'd be expensive to do that? I was thinking about doing it next Summer for a month and camping on the way. I wonder is that realistic.


    There's so much of Ireland I haven't seen as an adult (family holidays every year in the 80s) but I think if you never left the East Coast, you wouldn't think Ireland was anything special. I've seen Kerry, some of Cork, Galway, Donegal and Sligo as an adult and they're nothing but beautiful. Obviously you won't have the stark contrast of larger countries but there's no denying Ireland has a lot of beauty.


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  • #61
    bb1234567
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,513 ✭✭✭bb1234567


    Buzz Killington the third wrote: »
    People who talk about "Ireland's natural beauty" must have never seen a field or mountain before. There's nothing really special here.

    We mightnt have big cut glass mountains like New Zealand, but for its size ,Ireland has a lot of beauty in it.


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