Magical Holidays in Co.Clare
If you are visiting Ireland, why not have a peek and see how the weather’s acting in the West. Book a hotel in Clare and visit the nearby sights like the Burren. The Burren lies south of Galway in County Clare, Ireland. The name Burren is from the Irish – bhoireann meaning a stony spot. Its formation has lain unspoiled since the ice-age and is composed of karstic limestone, the biggest area of such in Western Europe.
It is a place of big surprise and delight to botanists, archaeologists and ecologists as well and uses up an area of around 300 sq. kilometres. The area is really bleak in appearance with glacial soil reduction in the maximum. However it has sufficient soil to grow a wide variety of probably the most uncommon and most rarified of plants, many of them strange bed fellows.
An excellent collection of alpines and Mediterranean varieties grow together in this limestone region with, strangely, a number of them being lime-hating vegetation. The Burren is bordered to the west by the Atlantic ocean and Galway Bay and is tucked inside the north-west part of Clare.
This region has many of the finest archaeological megalithic tombs in Ireland, if not in Western Europe. There are artefacts of human habitation dating back to almost 6000 years and the most famous may be the vortal grave, or portal dolman, at Poulnabrone. In this region alone there are more than 60 wedge tombs and the densest concentration in Ireland.
Nestling unobtrusively within the Burren, and merely four miles from Ballyvaughan, would be the Aillwee Caves. They were discovered in the 1940′s by a local farmer while out flocking sheep. His dog had disappeared and ended up being found inside the cave entrance which must have been covered for millennia. Remains of brown bears and indentations of the bear pits were found not far from the entrance. Bears happen to be extinct in Ireland for centuries so this find caused some exhilaration.
If you want to book a hotel in Clare then the Temple Gate Hotel is the place to stay. It’s a superb place to stay if you wish to visit the burren.