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Book Info A Traveller’s Guide
As befits any true scion of the Irish literary tradition, Brendan Lehane spins a good yarn. ‘Places to stay are plentiful but distant,’ he writes of the Sperrin Mountains – a distinct improvement on the 1930s when the naturalist Robert Praeger and a colleague ‘had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window, in the only cottage with rooms to hire. In the morning hens were roosting on their toes’. He has plenty of other tales, drawn from folklore and fact, and an abiding love of the unchanged Irish countryside which informs every paragraph of this witty and readable book. Wild places still exist in abundance in Ireland. As he reveals, you can climb a mountain, bathe in the sea, watch thousands of birds co-existing on off-shore stacks, fish for salmon with a good chance of catching one, and hear the dusk calls of the corncrake at a river’s mouth all in a day. Wild Ireland offers something different from the general run of guide-books. It takes you far beyond Dublin and the other popular tourist destinations such as Cork, Galway and County Kerry, spiriting you away to the remotest sea cliffs, secret valleys and mountain lakes, in Northern Ireland as well as the Republic. If you want to be an armchair traveller, Wild Ireland will entertain and entrance you for hours with vivid narrative and colour photographs. If you like the sound of a place, look in the accompanying fact-pack and you will find everything you need to plan a journey, arrange a fishing holiday, fix up accommodation or work out the stages for a long-distance walk. Specially drawn maps enable you to find all the author’s favourite spots. In this edition the fact-packs have been packed with more facts than ever: more telephone and fax numbers, more contact names and more outdoor activities together with e-mail and web-site addresses, in short everything necessary to bring this popular and successful guide-book fully up to date.  Download Advance Information SheetReview‘A magical natural history tour, his lyrical style truly lights the way.’ – The Guardian
‘Has history, birds, animals, flowers, mountains, and where to stay – not only along Connemara’s “electroencephalographically ragged coastline”. A holiday in itself.’ – Ann Barr, Harpers & Queen ContentsAbout the Series
Wild Ireland: An Introduction THE KEY TO IRELAND’S WILD PLACES The Shape of the Wild Wild Habitats Map of Ireland Showing Chapter Areas Protected Wild Places To the Reader CHAPTER 1: DONEGAL AND SLIGO Inishowen Peninsula Fanad Head to Rosguill Bloody Foreland Aranmore Crohy Head Dawros Head Slieve League Peninsula Errigal and the Derryveagh Mountains Blue Stack Mountains Lough Derg Glens of Sligo and North Leitrim Knocknarea Inishmurray Ox Mountains CHAPTER 2: THE WEST Barony of Erris The Mullet and Islands Nephin Beg Achill Island Furnace Lough Croagh Patrick Killadoon Mallaranny and Clew Bay Mweelrea Mountains Connemara Highlands The Western Way Partry Mountains and Lough Mask Iar Connacht Inishbofin Lough Corrib Aran Islands The Burren Coole Lough The Burren Way Loop Head Shannon Estuary CHAPTER 3: KERRY AND CORK Dingle Blasket Islands Iveragh Peninsula Valencia Island The Skelligs Beara Peninsula Dursey Mizen Head Cape Clear Island Lough Ine Sherkin Island Central County Cork CHAPTER 4: LAKELAND AND THE CENTRAL PLAIN Lough Allen and the Iron Mountain Bricklieve Mountains Lough Gara Lakeland Lough Ree The Cavan Way Little Brosna River Lough Derg and the Lower Shannon Slieve Bloom CHAPTER 5: THE SOUTH-EAST Slievefelim and the Silvermine Mountains The Galtees Knockmealdowns River Blackwater The Comeraghs Slievenamon Blackstairs Mountains Waterford Harbour and River Barrow South Wexford and the Saltee Islands Wexford Slobs CHAPTER 6: WICKLOW AND THE EAST Wicklow Mountains Ireland’s Eye River Boyne CHAPTER 7: NORTHERN IRELAND The Mournes Lough Neagh Strangford Lough Glens of Antrim Rathlin Island Giant’s Causeway Sperrin Mountains Lough Erne Marble Arch Glossary Useful Addresses Index Preview SLIEVENAMONBefore the invention of electric guitars young maidens fell collectively in love with handsome youths who hunted wild boar and formed armies to raid other armies in pursuit of blood feuds, lands, princesses with prospects and so on. No young man was quite so appealing in these and other respects as Fionn Mac Cumhail, or Finn McCool as his name is usually presented in English, doughty warrior and unrivalled hero of the Fenian cycle of legends, giant of the Giant’s Causeway and Fingal of the famous cave on Hebridean Staffa. Finn came from Slievenamon and was here hounded by bevies of desirous young women. The wise King Cormac Mac Art of Tara, whose somewhat cynical remarks about women have come down to us (‘arrogant when called on, lewd when neglected, silly… greedy... hating… tedious’ and so on) devised a plan. All the women who wanted Finn should race up the mountain’s side; Finn would be the winner’s prize. Slievenamon means, in fact, mountain of the women. KILLADOON It was a place that invited deep speculation. I sat on a rock and wondered what it would be like to be a meat-eating animal stuck to the floor waiting in vain for animals that you wanted and needed to eat to enter your mouth without compulsion. How would it feel to function best submerged in salt water and spend half your time – half of each day – all but out of water, in the air, and much of the rest of your day tantalizingly pummelled and sluiced, as the tide went in and out, by licks of water from which there was no chance of extracting anything to eat at all. This, it seemed from looking at it, was the essential daily cycle of the small beadlet sea anemone (Actinia equina), as it remained in its rock pool assaulted by the flow and ebb of the tide. |
| Wild Escapades |
 In our Wild Escape Competition, Liz Cleere described a trek in the eastern Himalayas to visit a slice of wild India that people rarely see and Helen Moat recounted the magical night she and her young son Jamie spent in the company of glow worms in Britain’s Peak District. Liz Cleere is the winner. |
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| Ruthless Rhyme Competition Result |
 The judges have announced the 12 poems short-listed in the Ruthless Rhyme competition. All are now published, along with audio readings, profiles of the writers and judges and a selection of rhymes that deserve mention for being creative or ridiculous. |
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Quote of the Week
Cottage with Rooms to Hire
‘They had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window... In the morning hens were roosting on their toes.’ – Wild Ireland by Brendan Lehane
‘They had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window... In the morning hens were roosting on their toes.’ – Wild Ireland by Brendan Lehane
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