View from Corkscrew Hill

With a name like Corkscrew Hill, you can imagine what the road is like.

I hope the panoramic photo worked. I’m not very good at those.

The grey hills to the side are called The Burren. They are exposed limestone. Due to the winds off the Atlantic the soil and vegetation never builds up.

The fields below were once barren too. The history of how they became more viable is incredible. Displaced Catholic farmers (due to Oliver Cromwell) had to make a living somehow, so they cleared the rocks by hand and used them to build the fences. Then, to add nutrients and soil, over many generations they carted seaweed from Galway Bay and laid it onto the fields to decompose. The result is what you see now. The backbreaking nature of generations of work to create this is heartbreaking.

The water is Galway Bay.Read more