Welcome to the Deise Greenway, County Waterford
The Deise Greenway
County Waterford
Ireland
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Waterford / Deise Greenway
The Amazing new Deise Greenway is almost completed and for anyone who has not heard about this new public cycle and walking path in county Waterford Ireland, here is some basic information !
The History of the Greenway – A Railway history
Waterford to Dungarvan
The Railway Line from Dungarvan to Waterford was constructed during the 1870’s and was officially opened on the 12th August 1878 with the first train departing Waterford at 10.10 and arriving at Durrow just over an hour later.
The building of the Railway was a remarkable project in that it had to be contructed over very harsh terrain. From the Dungarvan side, two causeways had to be contructed, one over the Colligan estuary and one through the sea at Barnawee, a very impressive viaduct has to be built at Ballyvoile and an even more impressive tunnel, 480 yards long, fully lined was constructed just a little further down the line. Another viaduct at Kilminnion and an almost 100 feet high curved viaduct at Kilmacthomas to name just a few. It headed down towards the lovely station at Kilmeaden and then on the riverbank of the River Suir below Mount Congreve into Waterford City.
The Railway line was not just of national importance, it was also our line with the UK with many Irish people emigrating there but many used it to come over and back. In March 1967, the last passenger train left Dungarvan station for Rosslare. But it reopened again with the opening of the Magnesite ore processing plant at Ballinacourty but this plant closed in 1982. Engineers ran occasional locomotives on the line up until 1990.
CIE own the line but Waterford County Council acquired a license from them at the start of this century to make it into a pedestrian walkway/cycle path for tourism and leisure.
It has impressive history, a history we can not neglect by not taking an interest in the line, we need to preserve it for the people as an amenity for the people.
Rebirth of the rail line – The Deise Greenway
The Deise Greenway is almost complete so last weekend we took a walk along the section from Ballyvoyle brick-lined tunnel down to Dungarvan Bay. This section of the route is just fantastic to walk as it induces the Ballyvoyal tunnel and viaduct and then the wonderful views of the waterford coastline above the town of Dungarvan.
Below are some of the pictures I took on Sunday ……
Gallery
Monday Poetry – The Eagle By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Eagle
The Eagle
Nigel Borrington
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Irish Landscape photography , The path to the beach – County Kerry
Irish Landscape Photography
Brandon Point
County Kerry
Nigel Borrington
The Path down to the Beach at BallyQuin, Brandon, County Kerry Ireland
Sunset’s Ghost – Poem by Richard George
Sunset’s Ghost – Poem by Richard George
Lilac clouds, a wash of green
At daylight’s end:
When west is dark, to northward
A heat-haze aurora
Silhouettes our roof-slopes.
Beautiful, but it chills me:
We have made her burn with fever,
The sky, our mother.
Poem By : Richard George
Irish wild plants , Wild Orange Crocosmia
This showy plant graces many country lanes from July to September with a wonderful display of spikes of bright reddish-orange flowers. A familiar sight in the west of Ireland particularly, it is taken by many to be one of our native plants, along with Fuchsia. However, like Fuchsia, this is an introduction to our shores and is a hybrid between two South African species.
Common Name: Montbretia
Scientific Name: Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora
Irish Name: Fealeastram dearg
Nevertheless it is a very attractive sight and seems to blend in to our landscape, particularly in places where it grows alongside our native Purple Loosetrife. The flowers (25-55mm) are in a one-sided loose panicle and have a corolla which is tubed with six lobes. The three stamens protrude. The grass-like leaves are long and narrow. This plant belongs to the family Iridaceae.
This plant was named after Coquebert de Montbret (1780-1801) who was a French botanist who accompanied Napoleon when he invaded Egypt in 1798 and who died there at the age of 20. However, horticulturists also refer to this plant as ‘Crocosmia’ which comes from the Greek ‘krokos’ – saffron – and ‘osme’ – smell. I am told that they smell of saffron when placed in water but honestly I cannot confirm that this is so.
Mountain Poetry, Ride the foothills by : Denel Kessler
Foothills of Slievenamon
Irish Landscape images
Nigel Borrington
Denel Kessler
Chinook Skies
cobalt rain
rides the foothills
mountains conspire
in malevolent
cloud lairs
beneath gray waters
she treads
the warming sea
in constant current
scaled desire
burnished crimson
silver sleek
with ripened need
she lives to die
upstream
An Old Man on the River Bank, By George Seferis
River Barrow
County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
An Old Man on the River Bank
By George Seferis
And yet we should consider how we go forward.
To feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move
nor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole
when scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls.
And yet we should consider towards what we go forward,
not as our pain would have it, and our hungry children
and the chasm between us and the companions calling from the opposite shore;
nor as the bluish light whispers it in an improvised hospital,
the pharmaceutic glimmer on the pillow of the youth operated on at noon;
but it should be in some other way, I would say like
the long river that emerges from the great lakes enclosed deep in Africa,
that was once a god and then became a road and a benefactor, a judge and a delta;
that is never the same, as the ancient wise men taught,
and yet always remains the same body, the same bed, and the same Sign,
the same orientation.
I want nothing more than to speak simply, to be granted that grace.
Because we’ve loaded even our song with so much music that it’s slowly sinking
and we’ve decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold
and it’s time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail.
If pain is human we are not human beings merely to suffer pain;
that’s why I think so much these days about the great river,
this meaning that moves forward among herbs and greenery
and beasts that graze and drink, men who sow and harvest,
great tombs even and small habitations of the dead.
This current that goes its way and that is not so different from the blood of men,
from the eyes of men when they look straight ahead without fear in their hearts,
without the daily tremor for trivialities or even for important things;
when they look straight ahead like the traveller who is used to gauging his way by the stars,
not like us, the other day, gazing at the enclosed garden of a sleepy Arab house,
behind the lattices the cool garden changing shape, growing larger and smaller,
we too changing, as we gazed, the shape of our desire and our hearts,
at noon’s precipitation, we the patient dough of a world that throws us out and kneads us,
caught in the embroidered nets of a life that was as it should be and then became dust and sank into the sands
leaving behind it only that vague dizzying sway of a tall palm tree.
Solo images : Jameson Irish Whiskey , County Cork – The Mash
Jameson Irish Whiskey
The Mash
Nigel Borrington
The Whiskey mash
A mechanical metal stirring unit with a central bevel gear, installed to make stirring easier. That way the sugar could not only be extracted faster but also more efficiently. Less sugar was left in the husks of the grain, and the whisky became more affordable.
The mash has to be stirred for some time to extract the malt sugar from the grist. In earlier times, a lot of water used to evaporate during this process, and with the water steam the temperature fell constantly, which further impaired the extraction process. Only in the last century, when energy costs rose, nearly all mash tuns were equipped with a lid made of sheet metal (e.g. copper) in order to limit the loss of energy.
Friday Poem , The Valley And The Mountain Top
The Valley And The Mountain Top
Though standing in this valley
with yet the mountain top in view,
I will indulge my aspiration
to see the sights from that point too!
This will be my challenge,
to get from here to there!
I’ll see the view from the mountain top,
and breath the mountain top air!
This is quite the challenge I chose
but I must make it to the top!
If the attempt determines
the success or failure,
“No way now can I stop!!!”
There it is! I can see the top!
Mere feet am I away from my goal!
This challenge has pushed the limits,
I believe of my heart, mind, body and soul!
Though standing on this mountain top
with the view of the valley below,
I indulged my aspiration,
from my indulgement
this I do know!
As wonderful as the view is from here
to as far as the eye can see,
I must never forget where this started from,
with the view standing in the valley!
A Poem By – Thomas A Robinson Thomas , Borders and Fences
Borders and Fences
Nigel Borrington
Borders and Fences
Your borders
are mending fences
And false fiction
is the elevated
runoff of the headwaters
of your dreams
And the people black framed
in the cages
of the eternal moment’s collapse
Will gather generating
candle light wisdom
of those
who deny existence
House By The Sea – Poem by N Nobu
House By The Sea – Poem by N Nobu
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Where sun sheltered
from the waning moon
myriads of stars
and the lightning beams.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Where fireflies lit the sky
crickets sang nearby
and gentle waves kissed
the golden sands goodbye.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Fought a little, talked a lot
danced with the breeze
cherishing moment of
bliss and peace.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she
.
She stooped a little
he antiqued a bit
there vision dimmed
with every passing cloud.
She died
In a house by the sea.
Mermaids tell he never cried
for he knew
Lovers never die
and she awaits otherside
where sea meets the sky…..
Landscape poems, “His Dream Of Skyland” by Li Po
His Dream Of Skyland
The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves.
But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say,
May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud.
This land of the sky stretches across the leagues of heaven;
It rises above the Five Mountains and towers over the Scarlet Castle,
While, as if staggering before it, the Tien-tai Peak
Of forty-eight thousand feet leans toward the southeast.
So, longing to dream of the southlands of Wu and Yueh,
I flew across the Mirror Lake one night under the moon.
The moon in the lake followed my flight,
Followed me to the town of Yen-chi.
Here still stands the mansion of Prince Hsieh.
I saw the green waters curl and heard the monkeys’ shrill cries.
I climbed, putting on the clogs of the prince,
Skyward on a ladder of clouds,
And half-way up from the sky-wall I saw the morning sun,
And heard the heaven’s cock crowing in the mid-air.
Now among a thousand precipices my way wound round and round;
Flowers choked the path; I leaned against a rock; I swooned.
Roaring bears and howling dragons roused me –
Oh, the clamorous waters of the rapids!
I trembled in the deep forest, and shuddered at the overhanging crags,
one heaped upon another.
Clouds on clouds gathered above, threatening rain;
The waters gushed below, breaking into mist.
A peal of blasting thunder!
The mountains crumbled.
The stone gate of the hollow heaven
Opened wide, revealing
A vasty realm of azure without bottom,
Sun and moon shining together on gold and silver palaces.
Clad in rainbow and riding on the wind,
The ladies of the air descended like flower, flakes;
The faery lords trooping in, they were thick as hemp-stalks in the fields.
Phoenix birds circled their cars, and panthers played upon harps.
Bewilderment filled me, and terror seized on my heart.
I lifted myself in amazement, and alas!
I woke and found my bed and pillow –
Gone was the radiant world of gossamer.
So with all pleasures of life.
All things pass with the east-flowing water.
I leave you and go – when shall I return?
Let the white roe feed at will among the green crags,
Let me ride and visit the lovely mountains!
How can I stoop obsequiously and serve the mighty ones!
It stifles my soul.
– Li Po. Translated by: Shigeyoshi Obata
A Poem By WILLIAM WORTHLESS – barley field
Barley field
i walked the barley field standing oh so bold
blowing in the breeze with its leaves of gold
sun was beating down as i walked along my way
through the fields of barley on a summers day
it was very peaceful it made me feel so whole
such a tranquil feeling it reached in to my soul
such a lovely feeling it made me feel so free
walking through the barley brought all this to me
County Kilkenny Landscapes and a Poem : Like Barley Bending, Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933)
Barley Field
County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Like Barley Bending
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;
So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.
“The River rowers” By Sarah Lyn
River Images
Nigel Borrington
Sarah Lyn
Me and Jessie T
Rowing down cedar creek
oar in hand, smile on our faces
intoxicated steering
trees scraping our backs
cant stop laughing
just keep rowing
Nigel Borrington 
Changing my Blogs header
I guess every now and then we all need to change our blogs header image. Since the start of the year I have had the below landscape image of our local Mountain Slievemanon – county Tipperary, as my sites header, Taken during the winter months.
It has taken me until the Summer to capture an image that I was as happy to use but last week, while out walking I wondered through a local field full of Barley and took some close up images. One of these I knew I would be very happy to use as a header image, at least until the Autumn when I hope to capture some of my most loved yellows and browns from the changing Irish landscape.
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August 3, 2016 | Categories: Comment, Landscape | Tags: Barley, Blog, Header images, irish landscape images, Kilkenny, Landscape, Nigel Borrington, Slievenamon, Tipperary | 4 Comments