Clints and Grykes, a Sea of Stones in The Burren

We covered a lot of distance today, traveling from Clifden in Co. Galway into Co. Clare to see The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher on our way to Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. As usual, we started our day with an agenda that time and energy couldn't support, especially since I seem to be slow to process road signs when there are more than three pointing in multiple directions. I also seem not to understand that exits on roundabouts don't necessarily correlate to egresses, so when Fiona (the GPS voice) says "in 450m enter roundabout and take the second exit," if the first egress isn't marked with a route post, it doesn't count as an exit. Of course, Fiona never says "…take the second exit for R59" which would make it ever so much easier because I'd have a sign to look for rather than having to guess. The point is that we, and subsequently Fiona, had a fair amount of "recalculating" to do today because of my processing lapses, but even without the lost time of turning around, getting from here to there in Ireland takes much longer than one realizes. That being said, it seemed clear that we would have to take a portion off our plate, so we bypassed the Cliffs of Moher. We've had our share of dramatically cliffed coastlines, having already visited the Causeway Coast and the Slieve League, so we opted for the drama of The Burren, and we weren't disappointed.

Driving through The Burren (the Rocky District) is a dramatic experience as the landscape in all directions in the northwest corner of Clare county seems to be sweeping hills covered with thick slabs of limestone called clints that look to have been drizzled like silver icing on the earth by some giant confectioner. The deep fissures between the slabs are known as grykes and we came at a time when they were abloom with vivid wildflowers bobbing against the stark hardscrabble pavement, but grasses, ivy, and other vegetation grow readily in the grykes as well, as the moisture collected there provides a rich humid soil. They are like self-watering planters. These fissures have drained the rainfall of centuries to underground rivers, and there are many caves beneath the Burren as well. The ancient people who lived in this stark land were probably farmers who eked out a life on the top soil that originally covered these rock shelves that had been formed by an ancient sea and then due to some seismic shift in Earth's core were forced to the surface, but over the millennium, the soil has been swept away by the winds. What remains are the stones: walls of stones stacked vertically, horizontally, and every which way, in random pattern held together by the laws of physics and gravity, glued only by air and sweat equity that has lasted the ages; ruins of stone forts; cairns; megalithic dolmens; and ancient burial chambers. Where the clints and grykes disperse at the edges of the Burren, the slopes are brilliantly green with vegetation.

We stopped along the way at one of the largest portal tombs in Ireland, Poulnabrone Dolmen, wishing it were sunset and that a tour bus hadn't pulled in behind us, but despite the regrettable chatter in the air, we were awed in the presence of this sacred megalithic monument, wondrous at how possibly the builders of it accomplished their astonishing task of moving, standing, and lifting these huge slabs of stone weighing tonnes, a secret yet to be spoken on the breeze.