The Mountain, a poem by Deloris Louise Pacheco, USA
Carrauntoohil, County Kerry
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
It was just before dusk
When he started his climb
The path grew narrow
So the dog went ahead
It grew rocky and steep
But the old man kept up
Not knowing the dog
Had slowed his pace
The old man thought back
To his very first climb
That summer evening
Of his twelfth year
All alone on the mountain
A heaven full of stars
A rock for his pillow
He talked to the moon
He asked many questions
He called his ancestors by name
The heavens answered him
With many signs and sounds
That were later explained to him
By the tribal Medicine Man
A man who came to play
A very important part in his life
He became a warrior that year
He learned much from his family
The tribal customs and traditions
Were ingrained in his soul
He was a good listener
And was comfortable with words
He was accepted by the coucil
At a very young age
He had the strength of his father
The patience of his mother
The intelligence of his grandmother
And the wisdom of his grandfather
He learned how to guide
Not only himself but others
He had become all things
To all of those around him
He was a good chief
But his days were dwindling
His mind kept going back
Over all the things he had done
No regrets, no what ifs
Knowing he did his best
But things were changing
It was the dawn of a new era
The old man reached the ledge
Where he had stood many times
Since being that boy of twelve
And he was still awed
By the beauty of the heavens
The stars seemed so close
You could reach out and touch them
And that night, he did
The Cottage By The Sea – A Poem by Esme Shaw
Come my love and live with me
In a sweet little cottage by the sea
Where roses grow around the door
And flowers bloom for evermore
Inside my cottage clean and neat
A big brick fireplace will give out heat
Outside the birds will sing all day
And on the beach the children play
So come my love to the cottage by the sea
And see how happy we will be.
Esme Shaw
A Cottage by the Sea …
From the mountain to the sea, By Sophie Boswell
From The Mountain to the sea
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Life is like a journey from the mountain to the sea
A struggle through many layers to finally feel free
Free to go out and see the wonders of the world
Where, in the process, one is often hurled
This way and that, through the good and the bad
Where emotions are flung lose to the point of driving you mad
Sometimes, when I’m down, and feel worn out
And everything around me seems to be in doubt
My vision is blurred; my judgment is haywire
And my demons rejoice in putting out my fire
I think about the journey from the mountain to the sea
By the light of the moon; a heavenly place to be
This place, in the mind, will always set me free
to be the happy wanderer I was meant to be
Gathering and searching in peaceful solitude
Where time and nature can alter my mood
And the Spirit of Life will breathe inside me
As I journey from the mountain to the sea.
Macro Photography – The Nature of early spring in Ireland
Early Spring in Ireland
Nature Photography
Nigel Borrington
A Gallery of images taken over the last four days here in county Kilkenny and Tipperary, Springtime has almost arrived 🙂 ….
The Last Sun light in an evening Haze
Evening haze from a March sunset
Nigel Borrington
The last Yellow beam in the sky drowns itself.
Haze tinged – leave-taken.
Delicate draperies of fog are waving.
A slight evening shadow sinks into them.
The Sun donates the last of its day.
Still standing alone in the early evening.
needing a resting from the dance.
Until starlight breaks through.
A wondrous silence falls like a dream.
The amazement of the coming night awakes.
A last call dies away, it is barely to hear.
And trees and bushes by the wayside
coming together tightly,
aspirating their song of praise into the night.
Killarney national park , Ireland
Killarney National Park Nigel Borrington
Irish landscapes
Friday the 10th of March 2017 and I am just planning some weekends away during the year, I am very keen to spend sometime as soon as possible back in the National park of Killarney. The park is a perfect place to visit if your into photography with its mountains and lakes and fast flowing rivers.
Its also an amazing place to cycle, so I am hopping to plan a B&B route leaving the car behind and spending time cycling in the Kerry mountains 🙂
Lower Lake Killarney 2011
Dear March – Come in – By Emily Dickinson(1830 – 1886)
Irish Landscape images
March 2017
Nigel Borrington
Dear March – Come in
Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886
Dear March – Come in –
How glad I am –
I hoped for you before –
Put down your Hat –
You must have walked –
How out of Breath you are –
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest –
Did you leave Nature well –
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me –
I have so much to tell –
I got your Letter, and the Birds –
The Maples never knew that you were coming –
I declare – how Red their Faces grew –
But March, forgive me –
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue –
There was no Purple suitable –
You took it all with you –
Who knocks? That April –
Lock the Door –
I will not be pursued –
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied –
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame –
Monday Poetry, The Water Replies – Luke Kennard
The Water Replies
Waterford Coastline, Sunrise to Sunset
Nigel Borrington
Luke Kennard
The Water Replies
Maybe we have washed our hands
and drunk deep and swam
and think we know her,
but water’s reputation goes before her like a flood:
she does not suffer fools or gadflies.
Therefore I have prepared some questions.
Where do you get your ideas & your tide from?
Don’t say the moon – that’s really pretentious.
But as I clamber down the coast
I lose my footing and spend our allotted time
tossed around in her backwash,
pummelled by tiny stones.
When I am baptised I ask the water
Where have the demons gone?
Were they hiding behind the H, the 2 or the O?
I emerge finally able to see that I have not changed,
that I can of myself do nothing, that water decides.
On the towpath behind the church
I wring out my jacket. I ask the water:
Will you convey these thoughts away?
These itching hatreds, toothache of jealousy,
These squalid appetites and dog thirsts?
Just as far as the next city will do.
The ripples of the moon’s tablature.
When was the last time you cried, and why?
I ask the water. I ask the water:
Do you have plans later?
A New Wind farm, Ballybeigh, county Kilkenny
The Mountain of Slievenamon
County Tipperary
Ireland
Nigel Borrington
Wind Farms, Love them or hate them ?
They must be one of the most controversial additions to the modern landscape, many like them but more people dislike and protests against their construction.
Here in Ireland, over the last decade or so we have seen a massive growth in their development with our landscape increasingly covered with them !!
My personal feelings are more neutral than some, I feel it has to be remembered that Ireland has few natural energy resources and sourcing them from around the world is expensive.
There are also much more damaging methods of creating energy than these modern windmills.
The area of the hills above Kilmanagh, county kilkenny is currently having two news wind farms developed, these images below show one of them. The image at the top of this post shows the views of the area before the development started, clearly very stunning!, yet I still find the construction of these massive towers more interesting than not.
Wind farms, I guess – they are always going to be loved and hated at the same time !!!
New wind farm, county Kilkenny
Bogland – Poem by Seamus Heaney
Bogland – Poem by Seamus Heaney
Image – Nigel Borrington
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening–
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops’ eye
Of a tarn. Our un-fenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They’ve taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They’ll never dig coal here,
Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
A weekend with wildlife, Otters of the river Suir
Wildlife weekend
Otters on the River Suir
County Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
My study of an Otter family on the river Suir, county Tipperary continued today Friday, Each time I visit this family I manage to get closer and closer, today being the most noticeable.
I managed to spend 40min with this one adult Otter as he or she hunted the river for fish, this process involved diving as deep as possible and spending about a minute below the water before coming back up for breath, during the 40 minutes I think two fish in total were retrieved.
I hope to keep returning many times of the winter months to monitor just how they are all doing, ist amazing to be able to get so close and exciting to study such wonderful wild animals.
Irish Landscape images, county Kilkenny : The fog after the rain, a poem
Irish landscape images
County Kilkenny
after the rain
The fog after the rain , a poem
Rain falls all day in the old valley,
All the woodlands swimming underneath the steaming fog.
What peaceful sound I hear,
softly rings out of the sparkling
Woods and fields,
song of a thousand winter birds
announcing the setting sun,
Who sings loudest, after the rains.
A Winters day on the farm …..
WinterFeed in the barn
County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Winters on a farm are a hard time of year, dealing with the weather and the cold, the dark evenings and early mornings. Life as a farmer must have many great moments but its not hard to imagine that there are less of these in the winter months than in the summer.
I took these images while out on a walk yesterday and as you can see, on this farm some of the cows are still out in the fields while some have been returned to their winter shed, soon all of them with be inside. In the Barn close by is stored some of the feed that will be used for the cattle over the next few months. In an area of the barn next to the feed is the farmers haybob that would have been used only a few weeks back to help get the hay bales ready.
The next few weeks are all about rest for the land and keeping the live stock warm and health in the sheds, life slows down and less work out in the fields is needed. While welcome in some ways you can imagine that this lack of activity can at times feel a little to slow but this is farm life.
Here in county Kilkenny each year you develop a great sense of the farming seasons and the activities that go along with them.
Kilkenny landscape images : Novembers last sunset
Kilkenny Landscapes
Ballykeeffe
Ireland
Nigel Borrington
Its hard to Believe that it is the end of November already !!
These images are of the last sunset, November 2016 🙂
Birds in Irish Folklore, The Robin
Birds of Irish Folklore
The Robin
Nigel Borrington
The end of November and you would think that all the wildlife has vanished from the landscape , however you only need to take an early morning walk to realize that there are lots of wild creatures still around.
This morning on a walk through the hills near Kilmoganny, county Kilkenny, I was accompanied by this little Robin who hopped from tree to tree in front of me 🙂
Here is a little folklore about the Robin from an Irish point of view …….
The Robin
If the soul and symbol of the old sun and the Oak King was the Wren, the Robin represented the new sun. The wren was said to hide in the Ivy, the Robin in the Holly. The Pagan Neolithic Festival of the birth of the new sun, symbolized by the Robin, was at the Winter Solstice (21st December). The Robin (the new sun) killed his father the Wren (the old sun) and that is how he got his red breast, ie, from the blood of his father. A Robin coming into a house was supposed to be a sign that someone was going to die there in the near future. Despite this association with death, the Robin was praised for being the only bird capable of singing all the notes of the musical scale. And furthermore, the Robin can sing for half an hour without repeating the melody, unlike the other birds.
The Boat men of the river Suir
Fishing boat
river Suir
County Tipperary
Fishing on the River suir
The walk along the river Suir, County Tipperary is one of the best river walks in the south east of Ireland. It is currently undergoing an upgrade to a hard surface that will for the first time allow for both walkers and cyclists.
The river is used by many local people during the year but the fisher man are most probably it’s most common visitors, the River is renowned for its game angling, holding both salmon (Salmo salar) and brown trout (Salmo trutta).
I have taken many photographs of the fishermen here over the years alone with the boats they use for their fishing, these boats ( all made locally ) are used more like punts as the have a completely flat bottom and are moved along the river with a pole.
Fishing in Ireland : CLOCULLY TO CARRICK-ON-SUIR
The River Suir from Clocully to Carrick-on-Suir is a combination of deep pools, fast glides and varying widths and depths.
From Clocully to Ballydonagh, a consortium of private landowners control the angling, these are all private fisheries. This stretch also includes parts of the River Tar and River Nire, which contain good stocks of trout of up to 30 cm.
Fishing on the river Suir : Gallery
A November weekend – Gallery ……
Images of November
The following images are just some of the many I have posted here of my blog since 2011, in the month of November. It is one of my most loved months each year for photography as the sun is always low in the sky and the cold , moody and foggy weather is drawing in…….
As its Friday and the weekend is very close I hope you have a great one 🙂 , if you get time to capture some images I hope you Enjoy yourselves 🙂 have a great time what ever you do !!!!
November Gallery
Irish standing stones : Carrigeen, Nire Valley, County Waterford
Irish standing stones
Carrigeen
Nire Valley
County Waterford
Irish Standing stones : Carrigeen,
Carrigeen standing stone is among the best located stones in Ireland. It stands in a superb location at the top of the picturesque Nire valley from where there is magnificent panoramic views of the surrounding mountainous region. On the day this image was taken it was -2 degrees and the mountains had a thick covering of mist.
The stone stands some height, an impressive 2.5 meters and tapering to a sharp point. It stands solidly upright and is oriented in a WNW-ESE direction.
An interesting observation here, was when looking westwards, that the jagged crest of the stone seemed to align somewhat with the distant profile of the mountain ridge to the west. (see photo below). This may be just coincidental or was it of significance and could this jagged profile of the stone have survived through thousands of years?
Apart from this speculation, Carrigeen standing stone and its surroundings is a ‘must see’.
County Kilkenny Landscapes, New digital art works
Landscape painting
Straw Bales
County Kilkenny, Ireland
Nigel Borrington
I am continuing to explore the world of digital painting using a Wacom studio art tablet and truly enjoying the creative experience it can offer.
I am planning in the new year to return to real paint and brushes but at the same time I have really taken to using digital media, I will continue to use it both to produce sketch work and finished drawings and painting. The power that digital painting offers to be creative and to be attached with modern social media is hard to escape 🙂 , the next step is to explore how to print onto more traditional papers and canvas in order to present finished work in a more traditional way.
Winter is coming once again, a poem
Winter and the Crows
Slievenamon
County Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
Winter Is Coming once Again
The sky is filled with broken light,
The Sun is hidden by deep snow filled clouds,
There’s a chillness to the air,
I feel it everywhere,
All through the days and nights;
Winter is coming.
The Crows fly above Slievenamon
hunting harder then before, and the ground below
Is hard beneath wing and claw,
The trees stand bare of leaves and fruits,
And all around
Is still, Silent;
Winter is coming.
The sun will soon be gone,
Obscured by cloud,
The rivers and lakes begin to freeze,
The wind will bend the trees
Until they’re bowed
In supplication.
Winter is coming, once again.
Only the dead will feed hungry crows:
Mice, rabbits, sparrows.
The light fades from the Sun
Now darker days have come,
for the high crow, cold bites to the marrow,
And Winter is here.
Again.
A Sketch of two fishing boats, Keem Strand, Achill Island, Co. Mayo
Two fishing boat
Keem Strand
Achill Island
County Mayo
Video Landscapes : Mullins mill , County Kilkenny
Frosty Morning at Mullins Mill, Kells, Co.Kilkenny : Nigel Borrington
The two videos below are of the restored waterwheel at Mullins mill on the kings river county Kilkenny.
The photograph was taken back in 2011 but the video only last week.
The morning the videos was cold with a frost and you can see the mist created from the water as it is raised up by the water wheel. it was great fun making these, the motion and sounds created a picture of past times and technology and added a true reminder of the original usage of the mill.
Today the mill is a local heritage and craft center.
Nigel Borrington 
Happy St Patrick’s day, AN Irish Landscape and nature Gallery……
Happy St Patrick’s day to everyone 🙂
To celebrate this St Patrick’s day, I am sharing a very full collection of images from my Blog, all of them taken over the last couple of years or so. I feel they show this land, a small part of the European continent at its very best.
Ireland a St Patrick’s Day collection ….
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March 17, 2017 | Categories: Comment, Gallery, Irish Boglands, Irish rivers, irish woodlands, Landscape, Nature and Wildlife, Travel Locations | Tags: Europe, Ireland, Landscape, Nature, Nigel Borrington, ST patricks day | 13 Comments