The Sheep Under the Snow by William Henry Gill
The Sheep Under the Snow
by William Henry Gill
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
The Sheep Under the Snow
by William Henry Gill
The snow’s on the mountains,
The snow’s in the gill,
My sheep they have wandered
All over the hill;
Uprise then, my shepherds,
With haste let us go
Where my sheep are all buried
Deep under the snow.
The dogs in the haggard
Are barking aloud,
At the moon, as she struggles
From under the cloud.
Uprise then, my shepherds,
With haste let us go
Where my sheep are all buried
Deep under the snow.
Take staves, and take lanterns,
Put on your carranes;
We’ll hunt on the mountains,
We’ll hunt in the plains.
Uprise then, my shepherds,
With haste let us go
Where my sheep are all buried
Deep under the snow.
Then up rose those shepherds,
With haste they did go
Where the sheep lay all buried
Deep under the snow;
They sought them with sorrow,
They sought them with dread,
And they found them at last;—
But the sheep were all dead!
Glacier, A poem by Christos Andreas Kourtis Nov 30, 2013
Killary Harbour/An Caoláire Rua
Irish Landscape
Nigel Borrington
Killary Harbour/An Caoláire Rua is a fjord located in the west of Ireland in the heart of Connemara which forms a natural border between counties Galway and Mayo. It is 16 kilometres long and in the centre over 45 metres deep. It is one of three glacial fjards that exist in Ireland, the others being Lough Swilly and Carlingford Lough.[1]
On its northern shore lies the mountain of Mweelrea, Connacht’s highest mountain, rising to 814 metres. To the south rise the Maumturk Mountains and the Twelve Bens. The area contains some of Ireland’s most awe-inspiring and dramatic scenery.
I visit the Fjord back in January and captures these images, I felt that Christos Andreas Kourtis poem “Glacier” matched the amazing atmosphere here perfectly …..
Glacier
Christos Andreas Kourtis
Nov 30, 2013
Slowly it slides on sub zero waters
trying to find a pathway to the sea
sheet of pure blue and heaven white
lumbers discreetly for aquiline is quite
From the top of the world
frozen fingers reach down
claws frantic on solid ground
No religion no sage
no saviour just age
and the relentless pull of gravity
will take it from mountain to the sea
This sculptress of valleys and dales
and fjords that can be seen for miles
travels without sound
onward bound
By Christos Andreas Kourtis
Images of Ireland, The Connemara Mountains Galway
Connemara mountains
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
At the end of last week I visited the Connemara Mountains in County Galway, one of Ireland most beautiful landscape areas.
The weather was just amazing, changing every ten minutes with heavy showers moving very quickly across the mountains and lakes.
I just love this part of Ireland, the mountains here contain the following ranges ….
Mountains in County Galway
Twelve Bens
The Twelve Bens or Twelve Pins (Irish Na Beanna Beola) is a mountain range in Connemara. Dedicated hill climbers can hike all twelve in a single day. The twelve Bens are a group of small mountains that are the dominant feature of the Connemara countryside. They are easily accessible from the N59 or from the villages of Letterfrack or Recess.
Mweelrea Mountains
Mweelrea rising from the northern shores of Killary Harbour, is one of the finest mountain massifs in Ireland. It may be climbed from Delphi following the ridges to the fjord.
Maamturk Mountains
Mammturk Mountains are a picturesque mountain range in North Connemara. They are less well known than their more famous neighbours, the Twelve Bens on the other side of the Inagh Valley. They are not very big (max 667m) but a pleasant climb in fine weather, with superb views and no congestion.
Mount Gable
Mount Gable (1370 feet) is one of the most beautiful and scenic mountain walks in Ireland. It dominates the isthmus between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask and guards one of the major routes into Connemara from the east. The starting point for a walk is approximately 2km from the village of Clonbur.
Slieve Aughty Mountains
The Slieve Aughty Mountains are a mountain range spread over both County Galway and County Clare. The highest peak in the Slieve Aughty Mountains is Maghera in Clare which rises to 400m (1,314ft). The mountain range consists of two ridges divided by the Owendallaigh river which flows west into Lough Cutra.
As evening falls
Irish Landscapes
Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
As evening falls,
Beauty of nature she calls
A warm orange glow does surround us
Casting a magical light all around
The sky like a fire does glow
Rippling water like flames do flow
Then as the sun dips behind the trees
And daylight reluctantly flees
Night does now appear
Yet its darkness do not fear
For in the inky dark sky
A new beauty is up high
The moon glows its mysterious light
While stars glisten and twinkle in the night.
Ghost House, Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963
Ghost House
Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad—
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had
Tower Houses of Medieval Kilkenny
Tower House
Kells, County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Tower Houses of Medieval Kilkenny, Ireland
The Landscape of County Kilkenny is full of history that covers many different era’s, including the Medieval period from around the 5th to the 15th century.
Just some of the reminders of this era are the great Tower Houses as detailed below.
A tower house is a fortified medieval residence of stone, usually four or more stories in height. Like most of the surviving monuments of our medieval past, the majority of Irish tower houses are in poor condition, with collapsed walls and ivy shrouded exteriors reflecting centuries of neglect. Yet these ruins, the remnants of a major medieval building industry, provide a valuable source of information on life in Ireland during the later Middle Ages. An increasing number are being restored through both private and state initiatives, while there has also been a marked upsurge in academic interest in recent years.
The buildings were regarded as castles by their occupants. This classification continues today and tower houses are regarded as a species within the castle genus. Their evident defensive strength should not, however, overshadow their residential nature, for tower houses were primarily the defended homes of a wealthy landowning class and were erected by both Anglo-Irish and Gaelic families during the period from circa 1400 to circa 1650.
Ref : Tower Houses
A breeze at Dawn
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
– Rumi
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
– Marcus Aurelius
The First Snow Of Winter, Slievenamon Co,Tipperary
Winters First Snow
Slievenamon, Co, Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
The last two days here in Ireland have brought the first Snow of this winter. The local Mountains including Slievenamon have been covered at the highest levels and its a great sight to wake-up to.
My Morning thoughts on Molly
Molly on a walk around the base of Slievenamon on the 20/11/2015
As many friends here know over the last three years I have been using my blog pages to share my Landscape photos, I am not sure if people realize that these posts were always more about shared walks for me and Molly our female golden retriever, deep into the Irish landscape and then using photos to recording these adventures , she was not always in every post or in all the landscape photos but she was always there alongside me.
This leaves a great legacy to Molly who sadly died peacefully last weekend, she was there with me for well over 1000 blog posts going back many years , this is however going to make the next few weeks and months so very hard in many ways, when returning to these places without her and I am a lot worried that as such my life has changed so much overnight.
I had a feeling after my last post yesterday that it could be taken as a goodbye to Molly but that could never be because she was with me for 12 years everyday and as such a goodbye would be simply impossible anyway!!!.
I see these moments and days into the future much more as a transition for her and me – YES!!! its a huge one but it was always going to be !!!.
She will always be with me and I can and have to find a way of embracing that !!!!
I have to grasp what has happened because I have to keep doing all the things we did together, the walks and all the visits to so many if not all the locations that I love around me, just like she did !!!
At the moment I am finding it almost impossible to go to any of these places, so I am house bound, I know sooner rather than later I have to get out and walking again otherwise my entire life has change to much!!
I found this great web page last night on these exact feeling I am having,
“Given the intense bond most of us share with our animals, it’s natural to feel devastated by feelings of grief and sadness when a pet dies. While some people may not understand the depth of feeling you had for your pet, you should never feel guilty or ashamed about grieving for an animal friend. Instead, use these healthy ways to cope with the loss, comfort yourself and others, and begin the process” More….
and gave it a good read, its very good as are so many pages of this topic 🙂
The experience of molly’s death at the weekend was peaceful for her but traumatic to be very honest for us, we were fully involved with her life right to the very last second of it and I am so pleased with this being the case, but OMG it’s hard in these days and hours since then !!!
The picture above was taken only on the 20/11/2015 and as you can see she was very healthy, slower with her age but for her age she was very good.
I do have that fact to hold on to.
I want to share these thoughts here because like I say Molly always had a massive place here over the years and she still does, its going to be very hard to work-out how to deal with her involvement into the future, I do however feel that she has one as I could not step out of the door at the moment with my camera, without feeling she is still here with me !!!
I love the Irish landscape so much though , so this blog does not stop here !!!!!!
A post just For you MOLLY !!!!
Friday Poetry : William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil
The Ghost
Like angels with wild beast’s eyes
I shall return to your bedroom
And silently glide toward you
With the shadows of the night;
And, dark beauty, I shall give you
Kisses cold as the moon
And the caresses of a snake
That crawls around a grave.
When the livid morning comes,
You’ll find my place empty,
And it will be cold there till night.
I wish to hold sway over
Your life and youth by fear,
As others do by tenderness.
— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
A December sunset, County Kilkenny, Ireland
Irish Landscapes
Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
To-night the west o’er-brims with warmest dyes;
Its chalice overflows
With pools of purple colouring the skies,
Aflood with gold and rose;
And some hot soul seems throbbing close to mine,
As sinks the sun within that world of wine.
Monday Poetry : Reluctance, By Robert Frost
Kilkenny Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Reluctance
By Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Happy Thanks giving to everyone …….
Have a great Thanks giving!!
Personally I am most grateful this year for all the changes I have had time to notice in the landscape that surrounds our home here in Ireland 🙂 🙂
– Carol L. Riser, Autumn
“When the trees their summer splendour
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year.”
Irish Landscape Gallery
Old Houses By Robert Cording
Old Houses
By Robert Cording
Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly
how old houses hold themselves—
before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—
as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.
.
I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil
without need of a sign, awaiting nothing
more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.
Out of the woods , by Gordon Edwards
Out of the Woods
Gordon Edwards
Out of the woods
the trail turns,
the field rises
verdant,
dormant grass
now impetuous,
wet with morning drizzle;
the path narrows,
a bevy of birds
an urgent chorus,
moisture seeps
thru the eyelets
of my shoes
My socks are damp,
the bottom of my jeans
capillaries,
the bark on my
walking stick
peeling away,
a dry stream bed now
gargles;
all is naked,
insistent;
I float
thru morning,
become a lifting fog
The Early Morning Sun
The Early Morning Sun
Colin Kohlsmith
Feb 14, 2010
It’s just so damn beautiful
And indescribable
The feeling that I get
In the early morning sun
Hanging like a golden torch
Shining with such blinding light
The glare reflecting off the lake
On the day that’s just begun
Amid the fluttering leaves the breeze
Feels like life is reaching me
Speaking in a gentle voice
Bringing tears to my eyes
Kissing me upon my face
Soft in love, as if to say
I love you my beloved one
This is your own sunrise
Friday Poetry , When You Are Old By William Butler Yeats
Irish Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
The Mountain Road – Poem by Enid Derham
Irish Landscapes
West cork Mountains
Nigel Borrington
The Mountain Road
Poem by Enid Derham
Coming down the mountain road
Light of heart and all alone,
I caught from every rill that flowed
A rapture of its own.
Heart and mind sang on together,
Rhymes began to meet and run
In the windy mountain weather
And the winter sun.
Clad in freshest light and sweet
Far and far the city lay
With her suburbs at her feet
Round the laughing bay.
Like an eagle lifted high
Half the radiant world I scanned,
Till the deep unclouded sky
Circled sea and land.
No more was thought a weary load,
Older comforts stirred within,
Coming down the mountain road
The earth and I were kin.
Ulysses By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The Light Bringer , a Poem by : Jude Kyrie
Irish Landscape
Nigel Borrington
The darkness of forever
a mantle that shrouds the earth
timeless stars cascade the bejeweled heavens
The silent stillness of all time
pervades the night sky
The light bringer in his infinite vigil
stands alone a silent sentry
lighting his planets one by one
Two lovers sleep in the blessed stillness
in cushions of clouds below the moon,
His starlight falls upon them
like a sweet gentle rain
Bestowing upon them
the gifts of his purest light
from the farthest
reaches of his universe.
On the earth below
lovers woo and maidens dream
as they have always been
bathing in its magical mist
The light bringer watches them
he sees the lovers share a kiss
believing they would capture each fleeting moment
preserve it forever in their memories
But their time was as a grain of sand
the deserts of time belong to him
Poems of Remembrance (W. B. Yeats and Robert Laurence Binyon)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
The GreatWar 1914-1918
For the Fallen
Robert Laurence Binyon, by artist William Strang. Laurence Binyon
Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
The Haunted House, by : Dwayne Leon Rankin
Ghost house
Irish landscapes
Nigel Borirngton
This last few days here in Ireland have been very wet and winter feels like it has arrived a little early, most of the Autumn leaves have been blown away from the high overnight winds and the cold nights, We have been left with a very wintry landscape.
Walking around Ireland at this time of year brings many great views and for some reason during these months I always feel drawn towards the old houses that still fill our local landscape. These old places are so full of memories and the atmosphere of long passed people and their lives.
Of course this is the also the perfect time of year for some evening ghost story’s, told around a fire while the rain hits the windows and the wind echoes all around your house !!!!
The Haunted House
Dwayne Leon Rankin, USA
Upon the hill, the house there stood,
Dark and left forlorn.
With vines that covered there the walls,
All seen full of thorn.
Surrounded by a gated fence,
No other entrance shown.
Dead leaves covered all the ground,
With weeds there overgrown.
Paint all pealed and windows cracked,
With shutters cov’ring all,
No noise from it was ever heard,
Not even birds sweet call.
Three full stories ‘gainst the sky,
Cheerless there and cold.
No one lived there was the word,
In stories that were told.
Tall old trees kept all in shadows,
Tangled bushes bare.
All dead and ugly there to see,
They say it once was fair.
Once it was a wondrous place,
Full of love and light,
Until one ev’ning came that call,
To give those round a fright.
A family lived there many years,
A husband and his wife.
With two small children of their own,
Living there a happy life.
But then one dark and dreary eve,
A scream rang out from there.
Terrible was that hideous sound,
Full of deep despair.
No one knew from whence it came,
That frightful mad’ning sound.
When they checked up in that house,
Not a soul was found.
No sign of that family seen,
Who lived there in that house.
Not a living thing was found,
Not even there a mouse,
All quiet there the house now stands,
No lights nor sound there heard.
Only there the rustling winds,
Nothing there occurred.
But for once a year there brought,
The same self night each year.
A lone sad waling sound would ring,
Out there loud and clear.
They used to check it out each time,
But nothing there was found.
The doors still locked with windows shut,
With nothing there around.
That house remains there all alone,
Haunted there they say.
Just sitting in all disrepair,
Empty to this day.
Monday Poetry : Light Between The Trees, By – Henry Van Dyke
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Light Between The Trees
Author: Henry Van Dyke
Long, long, long the trail
Through the brooding forest-gloom,
Down the shadowy, lonely vale
Into silence, like a room
Where the light of life has fled,
And the jealous curtains close
Round the passionless repose
Of the silent dead.
Plod, plod, plod away,
Step by step in mouldering moss;
Thick branches bar the day
Over languid streams that cross
Softly, slowly, with a sound
Like a smothered weeping,
In their aimless creeping
Through enchanted ground.
“Yield, yield, yield thy quest,”
Whispers through the woodland deep;
“Come to me and be at rest;
I am slumber, I am sleep.”
Then the weary feet would fail,
But the never-daunted will
Urges “Forward, forward still!
Press along the trail!”
Breast, breast, breast the slope
See, the path is growing steep.
Hark! a little song of hope
Where the stream begins to leap.
Though the forest, far and wide,
Still shuts out the bending blue,
We shall finally win through,
Cross the long divide.
On, on, on we tramp!
Will the journey never end?
Over yonder lies the camp;
Welcome waits us there, my friend.
Can we reach it ere the night?
Upward, upward, never fear!
Look, the summit must be near;
See the line of light!
Red, red, red the shine
Of the splendour in the west,
Nigel Borrington 
County Kilkenny, Landscapes images from a cycle
Cycling Kilkenny
As the new year began in full, I made the decision to get my cycle back on the road for 2016, I have owned this bike for about 18 years and during that time made some great use of it. Over the last few years however I had been using it less and less, so I guess its time to start some new adventures on it.
I finished getting everything back to a good condition, with a service about two weeks ago and have been taking local trips as often as possible during January.
I feel already that it is great to be out on the open road and its good to be able to just stop where you like and take out the camera to get some images, no need for finding a place to park up and you can stop the moment you see something, anything, you want a picture of.
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February 2, 2016 | Categories: Comment, Gallery, Kilkenny Landscape images, Landscape, Travel Locations | Tags: cycling, Irish landscape photography, Kilkenny, Landscapes, Nigel Borrington | 4 Comments