Yesterday’s Sun and wind, a poem for the January sun.
A view of Slievemamon, county Tipperary
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Yesterday’s Sun and wind
By : Ann Copland
She is the wind swift and pure
so rare to find her like this, still innocent
above a sunny afternoon far into tomorrow.
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The wind begins three Counties away
to cool the day, relieve us from the warming sun
Were you not sure she is real?
One day, you may see her, if you look
very close, spheres carry new molecules
Her breath is ice, you’ll feel it early maybe
just a brief gust before the temperatures drop
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Welcome on a January afternoon
by the time we see a branch sway
or a hat tumble, the freezing breath
has warmed to a gentle winter breeze
So much effort, the team who make nature
I’ll let the wind breathe
Irish Forestry
Irish Forestry images
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Local Landscape around County Kilkenny and the south east of Ireland contains many Woodlands and Forests, the following gallery contains just some of the many images I have very much enjoyed capturing over the last couple of years or so.
Irish Forestry: image Gallery
Forgotten Old Doors
The old red door.
Fujifilm x100
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Poem : Forgotten Old Doors
Old building on the Street some think it’s beautiful, others, just drab.
Many tread these thresholds, worn like tattered lace.
old address update in a compelling space.
Green’s a fitting color for a door, so is white.
A wisp of green in the morning light.
Kernels of romance in dilapidation, hint at the intent of this creation.
How many souls passed through this door? Closed for good or will there be more?
Memories of work, hope and laughter, dreams and wishes that bathed the rafters.
Evocative of a simpler time.
Speedy technologies permeate mine.
A rusty spigot, red weathered board. How long has this old place been ignored?
Cooler dressed in rust, corrugated tin, small dab of spring vegetation sneaks in.
And at the end of yesterday, memories within.
January Sky. A poem by : Dorothy (Alves) Holmes
Landscape view of south county Kilkenny
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
January Sky
Dorothy (Alves) Holmes
January chill freezes sky –
Early morning silhouette of pines
Are lifeless…
I close the blinds to this pale sky and go to
The east window where the sunrise
Throws kisses to awaken the day,
With promises to make me smile and
Bring the trees to life.
Her promise glows!
Duiske Abbey
Duiske Abbey, County Kilkenny
Irish Photography : Nigel Borrington
Duiske Abbey, County Kilkenny, is one of the best maintained Cistercian Abbey’s in Ireland also known as Graiguenamanagh Abbey, it is a 13th-century Cistercian monastery situated in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny in Ireland.
Duiske Abbey was founded by William Marshall in 1204 and is one of the first, largest and perhaps the finest of the thirty-four medieval Cistercian monasteries in Ireland. The Abbey is the parish church of Graiguenamanagh town and beautifully dominates the town centre.
The Abbey is located in the valley of the river Barrow, on a site between the main river and the Duiske tributary. The abbey derives its name from the Douskey River Irish: An Dubhuisce, meaning “Black Water”.
Both the Abbey and the town of Graiguenamanagh are wonderful locations to visit with a camera, Park in the town and visit the Abbey first , then you can walk along the river Barrow, north towards kilkenny or south towards Waterford.
Gallery
Kells Priory
Kells priory, county Kilkenny
Canon G1 x
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Kells Priory is located at Kells in county Kilkenny and is a great place to visit if you are in the county.
While most of America and Canada are dealing with snow storms and sub zero temperatures this winter , Ireland has been very mild with well over 40mm of rain during the Christmas period. I visited the Priory yesterday and most of the grounds are under water from flooding. The water however added a new feeling to the priory grounds and I took the following images to capture the atmosphere of an Irish winter here.
Kells Priory, Winters Gallary
Evening Images from the , Via dei Fori Imperiali, Rome
Evening on the Via Dei Fori Imperiali, Rome
Photography by : Nigel Borrington
These images are taken on an evening walk into the city of Rome along the Via Dei Fori Imperiali.
The lights had just been turned on and the day light was just finally fading, I love the mixed light so just had to get these images.
Gallery
The Sea Gull’s of Galway bay, Poem: Edwin John Pratt
Sea gulls, on Galway bay
Irish nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Sea Gulls
By : Edwin John Pratt
For one carved instant as they flew,
The language had no simile—
Silver, crystal, ivory
Were tarnished. Etched upon the horizon blue,
The frieze must go unchallenged, for the lift
And carriage of the wings would stain the drift
Of stars against a tropic indigo
Or dull the parable of snow.
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Now settling one by one
Within green hollows or where curled
Crests caught the spectrum from the sun,
A thousand wings are furled.
No clay-born lilies of the world
Could blow as free
As those wild orchids of the sea.
Down in the deep water, Image and Poem
Castlecomer lakes and river Dinin, county KIlkenny
Infra-red image
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Down in the deep water..
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where I ponder my life
Just how did I get to this
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where the waterfall of dreams
Sweeps away what’s left to the abyss
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where time stands still
just only forever.
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where I buried all
That was ever my childhood
Where I let it go,
Where it bends and meanders,
Twisting along as the years went past.
Seemingly calm, but screaming beneath the surface
Were its hidden whirlpools, a sweeping current
Down in the deep water,
I left the edge of the river,
As I looked down
For my soul at the bottom.
Deep in the deep water
Swept away by the river
I drowned in life,
Sinking forever.
Irish photography – Irish rivers
River Nore, Thomastown, County Kilkenny
Digital Infra-red image
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
County KIlkenny’s rivers
The River Nore, one of the three sisters.
The River Nore, is a 140-kilometre (87 mi) long river located in south-east of Ireland. Along with the River Suir and River Barrow, it is one of the constituent rivers of the group known as the Three Sisters.
The river drains approximately 977 square kilometres (377 sq mi) of Leinster. The river rises in the Devil’s Bit Mountain, North Tipperary. Flowing generally southeast, and then south, before emptying into the Celtic Sea at Waterford Harbour, Waterford.
Kilkenny landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Leenane
Leenane, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
The town of Leenane, Connemara, County Galway
The beautiful village of Leenane, snugly situated at the head of Killary Harbour, is often aptly described as the ‘Gateway to Connemara’. The roads from Maam, Clifden, and Westport meet at this point. Killary Harbour extends ten miles inland and with the mountains rising steeply on either side provides what is probably the best scenery in Ireland. Walkers have access to Mweelrea, Sheefry, Paltry and Maumturk Mountains.
Leenane with its surrounds is a haven for geologists due to a great variety of sedimentary, volcanic and metamorphic rocks. There is good fishing in the local Erriff and Delphi rivers. Well known beauty spots include Aasleagh Falls and Doolough Valley, scene of the tragic famine walk. A film adaptation of John B. Keane’s famous play “The Field”, directed by Jim Sherdian, was made in Leenane in 1989. Well-known stars taking part included the late Richard Harris, John Hurt and Tom Berrenger. Visitors can visit many of the locations used as sets in the film.
Gallery
Allihies Copper Mines
Allihies copper mines
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Copper mining at Allihies
Mining at Allihies started here in 1812 by John Puxley, a local landlord, after the large quartz promontory to the left here was identified as copper bearing as can be seen by its bright Malachite staining. Dooneen
Initial mining began with a tunnel or adit driven into this quartz lode from the pebble beach below. In 1821 two shafts were sunk as can be seen either side of the road here. Flooding was a continuous problem and in 1823 the engine house was erected to house a steam engine brought over from Cornwall to pump water from the depths. The remains of this building with the base of the chimney can be seen across the road. There is also evidence of a steam powered stamp engine to the left of the chimney and dressing floors in front of the engine house. The high dam further inland is the remaining evidence of a water reservoir which stored the water that was pumped out from the bottom of the mine. It was used for the steam engines and needed to separate the copper from rock. All the rubble on the cliff at the sea side of the road is the crushed useless quartz rock left over after the copper ore was extracted.
This is one of six productive mines in the Allihies area and continued its operation until 1838 when it closed due to failing ore.
John Puxley died in 1860 and in 1868 his son Henry Puxley sold the mines to the new Berehaven Mining Company who reopened the mine and installed a new 22 inch steam engine in 1872. Little ore was produced though in this period and the mine was finally abandoned in 1878.
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Coom Mine Mianach Chúim
Coom Mine was the last mine to be opened in the Allihies area having been opened in 1870 by the new Berehaven Mining Company who had recently bought the mines from Henry Puxley in 1868.
Two shafts were sunk and the engine house erected to house a 28 inch cylinder steam engine. The site was known as Bewley’s after the Dublin family who were board members of the Berehaven Mining Company.
The working in the mines was dangerous. A Mine Captain reports:
“On the 13 inst. we had a man killed by falling out of the whim bucket in the whim shaft (winding shaft), he fell 72 feet and was killed immediately. … The whim bucket was coming up and he was rather late to get into it, when he laid hold of the edge of it with his fingers and was drawn up nearly to the top in that manner but was obliged to let go at last and fell to the bottom of the shaft. … He was a very able young man – this day we intended to carry him across the mountain to Castletown a distance of 7 miles to have him interred but the weather is so bad with a fall of sleet and snow that it was not possible. … We hope to do the last for him tomorrow.”
In 1917 a further attempt to extract ore was made by Allihies Copper Mines Ltd. which proved fruitless.
Coom Mine proved not to be a very productive mine. It had only produced 70 or 80 tons of ore when it closed in 1882.
Found things; Birch Polypore in the January woodlands
Birch Polypore Funji
Irish Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Your may think the during the still month on January the woodlands are died and that nothing is growing, yet a closer look will bring you some well deserved surprises.
January for the woodland fungi is a perfect month, the winter rain and relative warmth of the trees bring perfect growing conditions, these Birch Polypore were growing in a woodland at the foot of Brandon hill, County kilkenny.
Birch Polypore
Description
The fruiting bodies (basidiocarps) are pale, with a smooth greyish-brown top surface, with the underside a creamy white and with hundreds of pores that contain the spores. The fruiting body has a rubbery texture, becoming corky with age. Wood decayed by the fungus, and cultures of its mycelium, often smell distinctly of green apples. The spores are cylindrical to ellipsoid in shape, and measure 3–6 by 1.5–2 μm.
P. betulinus has a bipolar mating system where monokaryons or germinating spores can only mate and form a fertile dikaryon with an individual that possesses a different mating-type factor. There are at least 33 different mating-type factors within the British population of this fungus. These factors are all variants or alleles of a single gene, as opposed to the tetrapolar mating system of some other basidiomycete species, which involves two genes.
Range and ecology
The geographic distribution of Piptoporus betulinus appears to be restricted to the Northern Hemisphere. There is some doubt about the ability of isolates from the European continent, North America and the British Isles to interbreed.
It is a necrotrophic parasite on weakened birches, and will cause brown rot and eventually death, being one of the most common fungi visible on dead birches. It is likely that the birch bracket fungus becomes established in small wounds and broken branches and may lie dormant for years, compartmentalised into a small area by the tree’s own defence mechanisms, until something occurs to weaken the tree. Fire, drought and suppression by other trees are common causes of such stress.
In most infections there is only one fungal individual present, but occasionally several individuals may be isolated from a single tree, and in these cases it is possible that the birch bracket fungus entered after something else killed the tree. These fungal “individuals” can sometimes be seen if a slice of brown-rotted birch wood is incubated in a plastic bag for several days. This allows the white mycelium of the fungus to grow out of the surface of the wood. If more than one individual dikaryon is present, lines of intraspecific antagonism form as the two individual mycelia interact and repel each other.
The fungus can harbor a large number of species of insects that depend on it for food and as breeding sites. In a large-scale study of over 2600 fruit bodies collected in eastern Canada, 257 species of arthropods, including 172 insects and 59 mites, were found. The fungus is eaten by the caterpillars of the fungus moth Nemaxera betulinella.
Gallery
A January Morn, a Poem by Nelda Hartmann
Kilkenny landscape photography
New years day 2014
Irish Landscape
A January Poem
January Morn
By – Nelda Hartmann
Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday’s storm.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow.”
Nigel Borrington 
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