North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Winter Shade

It's the beginning of March and yet it feels more wintery than it did at the beginning of the year. At the end of January, the Galway Walking Club led nearly 50 people around a loop of a corner of Lough Mask in the shadow of Drin/Bencorragh. For the first leg, we were bathed in sunshine and sweltered in our winter outfits. Once we stepped into the shade on the homeward leg, it was as if a switch had been flipped. The land was frozen and we trudged the last ten kilometres back in grey gloom, and glad of our heavy coats and boots.

The way that we went... we started at Ferry Bridge (where the lake narrows to a point), walked up to the church at Finny (white building with steeple on the left of the picture), crossed the river and followed the bank of the lake (on the right, out of picture) and returned on the righthand side of the lake's edge, in the shadow of Lugnabrick, BenLevy and finsihing under the watchful eye of Ceapach nagCapall, the hill at the right of the picture. The border of Mayo and Galway runs right up the middle of the lake, and follows the Finny river. This pciture was taken in December, when it was warmer!

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