Lough Boora Sculpture Park

Sculpture in the Parklands is a huge area (50 acres I believe) of cut away bog that they've invited artists to come create large scale, tangible art pieces in. They call it the place where Art and Nature meet. This is a landscape that was stripped down to nothing, which is flat for miles around in every direction under the ever changing canvases the sky and all it's heavenly bodies in that moment create.   Visitors pull up and park by Lough Boora, which on a calm day or peaceful evening reminds those not used to looking up just what they are missing.   The sky is something midlanders come to truly appreciate, probably why we have that rather large telescope in Birr (a story for another day).   It's a lovely area, and they've gone to extra effort to make it wheelchair accessible, which must be pretty unique.  You can also hire bikes if the walk doesn't appeal to you.  (This is part of Bog Track by Johan Sietzema)

Sculptures started appearing there in 2002, and life has continued to grow and change around them all, which I like enormously.  This is one of the best places to bring kids when everyone is a bit frazzled; I get to chill out walking and experimenting with the camera and the kids get to run, find small frogs and bugs, and, as was mentioned before, water and the presence of stones are nature's cure for infanticide.  I'm going to mix a couple of different days photos in this entry, just to give a flavour of the park, because now I go through today's shots I realise I didn't take many of the sculptures themselves, I got carried away with stuff C2 and I found.   (Today's trip guest feature the boys' friend and their cousin)

We kicked off the trip with a visit to the tadpole pond, some rescuing of tadpoles had to take place - where there was once a rapidly flowing stream there's now a scribble of boggy muck, edged with shallow pools of furiously wriggling masses of tadpoles.  The pond we found first is still deep, so the lads ferried pots of tadpoles from the drying patches to the pool.  Some of the tadpoles are noticeably fatter with shorter tails.  Very hard to photograph properly, I'll have to do some research into techniques before my next tadpole update. 

On to Boora, where water lilies are establishing themselves nicely close by to the car park.  The lakes have an impressive bird colony too, and I should mention that bird enthusiasts have been provided with a hide in Boora too.  

In the water we noticed this jelly like stuff,  green in distinct shapes and, again, difficult to photograph properly.  I have absolutely no idea what these are.  I'll be googling some more, but preliminary searches make me think they might be Ophrydium jelly balls (since colonies of Ophyrdium are found 3-10 feet deep in the photic zone of slightly acidic bogs and ponds.  - sounds right for here I think?)   When I noticed them first I thought they might have been eggs, but they are a bit big, I think. 

Along the way we encountered a much more accommodating orange tip butterfly, which allowed me to photograph it

And mystery number 2 - this is a casing, dried out and attached to the blades of grass.  I have the casing home with me, I must take a photo.  This is the underside, the other side clearly shows where something burst out and started the next phase of it's life.  I thought it might be a dragonfly nymph?  There is certainly a healthy population of dragonflies, we saw one monster one in the same area as this.

When I was a kid I used to joke about having a pet dragonfly on a lead to bring with me on lake walks to protect me from midges, which seem to find me especially tasty.

C2's favourite piece in the park is Ruaille Buaille by environmental artist Patrick Dougherty - C2 calls it a maze, it's a coiling tumble of walls and chambers made from ten ton of willow.  It's like the den I always wanted as a kid.

 

I was surprised by the sheer number of wild strawberry plants we came across.   I've noticed in the past that people seem reluctant to eat wild berries like these tiny strawberries or fraocháns (bilberries) which I love, so it'll be interesting to see if we get to pick them here or not.  

This is the Boora pyramid, by Eileen MacDonagh, "a stepped pyramid of unmortered glacial stone which has resonance with previous times and cultures."  Another favourite with my kids.
It suffers a little from other people's lapse to temptation to scratch their current love story into it, but nothing too serious.  I love that there's a couple of strawberry plants currently calling it home. 

This is what we as kids called Cuckoo Spit.  I didn't realise as I was taking the photo that I had actually caught the small insect that creates these "spits" around itself (I think that's what that is anyway) - The insect is the young of the froghopper.  It sits and pierces the plant on which it has created the spit, sucking sap until it matures.   This is the first time I remember seeing it with that clear drop on the end, it's usually just froth. 




This being a reclaimed bog, it's natural to find lumps of bog timber around the place, I liked this piece, nature decided to show off some of it's own sculpting techniques. 

We found loads of these, I couldn't help thinking that a massively scaled one of these shells in the park would be an interesting addition.  

Damselflies were out in hordes, partying on every available leaf, but the water boatmen didn't need the leaves. 

And I like this caterpillar's style..  I've not identified him yet though.  It's getting a bit late and he hasn't come up in preliminary searches.  Any ideas? 

This is Sky Train "An old motionless Rustin train & Creel type wagons celebrating the machinery and people who once worked on them over the years." by Mike Bulfin.  This is not a good photograph because there is nothing dramatic about the sky and it's too far away, but this one has the potential to be days of fun for a photographer I think.  I've seen spectacular sunset photographs of this, and I can imagine it with it's cage carraiges full of starry sky too.

I personally love sitting in the Lough Boora Triangle (this photo is taken from inside) It's a small triangular, open roofed hut(?) "Built around an iron frame, three black, bog oak trunks form the corners, shaped irregular pieces of bog wood form the somewhat transparent walls. The narrow entrance is marked by a triangular serpent stepping plate. Inside is a seat where visitors will be able to sit looking out of the narrow entrance toward the horizon".

It's by Jørn Rønna, whose work I like.   This is at a remote edge of the park and it tends to be quiet, I like the peaceful feeling of sitting in here, looking out. 


There's lots more sculptures, but I'll get to them another day, it's way past my bedtime already :)

Clara Bog boardwalk

Clara Bog used to have a car parking area on the road that travels through it, but it barely has a pull in spot any more.  The road side walk is fine, but to really see the bog and know how it squidges and smells and sounds you need to get stuck into the middle of it, but in a way that doesn't result in you sinking fast and wishing you had stayed at home.   Bogholes are not noted for their hospitality.   

The kind people at the National Parks and Wildlife Service have built a board walk, which you reach by going a small wooded area, mostly birch.   It's a very pleasant walk with plenty for young aspiring naturalist/photographers to have a look at.  C2 and I headed there yesterday while C1 was swimming.

We made a quick stop to check out the tadpoles - no big changes to report - and then headed for the walk, which brings you from the Derries to Clara, if the fancy takes you.


(click on any image to see a much bigger version)


View Larger Map

Butterflies were out in force, but proved largely impossible to photograph.  They gave C2 a run for his money, but he did manage to spot this one, which we think is a Holly Blue

(we're using http://www.irishbutterflies.com/holly_blue_butterfly_of_ireland.html to help us identify butterflies)
We also saw Cabbage whites, Orange Tips (I'd forgotten how orange that orange actually is) and the fantastically named Brimstone,  which looked like they'd been coloured with a fluorescent green pen as they were flying about, and certainly blend in well with early spring foliage shapes and colours.    These are the early guys, red adrmirals and tortiseshells arn't flitting about yet, they're not fans of early spring it seems.

Adult me walked along absorbing sunshine, insect drones intermingling with leaf sighs and birdsong, keenly observing colours and texture variations, birch dapple, and flitting butterflies.  Child C2 wanted to chase the butterflies, beat the undergrowth with sticks, climb rocks and trees and find dragons in stones. 

I think parents can expect that children will somehow see, feel, hear and smell with adult senses instead of a child's.  I hugely enjoy seeing things through his eyes and showing him things from my perspective.  I can pass on the test to see if bog "squishiness tastes the same way it smells" though. 

C2 is a keen fossil hunter, so there was a mandatory hunt for promising stones he can hammer in his grandad's workshop.  This is his latest:

There was a massive patch of wild garlic along the path, I asked him to guess what it was which he did, and I threatened to roll him in it to infuse him with the smell of garlic so that when C1 returned from swimming, starving, he might mistake C2 for his favouite garlic bread.    He didn't seem to alarmed at the idea, and stuffed my camera bag pocket with leaves.  He reckons the smell is pleasant "except for the peppery bit that itches your nose"

On the bug side of things here's some gorgeous green beetles, their shells seem like something we should make treasure out of. 

and a banded snail of some variety or other

We also came across a craggy, well bet up old rock presumably an ice age visitor abandoned on the bog as the ice retreated which C2 gleefully clambered all over.  I've always loved these when they get swallowed up by trees, adorned by small flowers ferns and shaggy mosses and entwined by dense, small leaved ivies.    The rock itself looked chewed on in places, I couldn't help thinking of Terry Practchett's trolls or the rock biter from the Neverending Story.   Intriguing tunnels from some hitherto unknown rock eating variety of rabbit were also well in evidence.   In the surrounding area were flourishing communities of violets, wood sorrell and ferns.   Ferns have always intrigued me, they look properly prehistoric, especially when they're curled up. 

The bog itself is still largely unimpressive, with only clouds of a coppery coloured plant (haven't identified it yet), an occasional splodge of undead green lichen and old bog cotton, well past it's sell by date, to break up the dead brown of sleeping heather.  Bog cotton, even the old stuff,  is very cheerfull stuff though, bopping about in the breeze.

Once you're over the bog you're back into light birch wood again, with the promise of bluebells and blueberries (well, froachans really) for later.

There might be a couple of photos I didn't already link in this post, if there is, they're here:

Clara Bog Boardwalk

Rahan Millennium Garden

The beech trees are greening from bottom up and  I'm sure the crows will be glad of it, camouflage and shelter are always useful. 

Took a turn around the teeny tiny Millennium garden near Killina, Rahan today while I was waiting for C1 to finish up.   It's hard to believe that Rahan was nearly every bit as important as Clonmacnoise, that a busy cultural, financial and religious centre was centred where sheep and cattle plod about now.   I'll talk about Rahan churches another time, for today I'll just mention the garden, a pet project of the late Fr. Seamus Dunican and Rahan Development association.  Fr Dunican was parish priest in Rahan and a keen historian and champion for the restoration of Rahan churches.  He took enormous pride in Rahan's monastic past and the creation of this small garden around a Mass rock was part of his hope that people might be drawn to Rahan for spirtual reasons.   

 

For those who may not be familiar with the term, a Mass rock was a large stone, usually taken from a church ruin or holy site and brought to an isolated, rural spot to mark a secret location where priests celebrated Catholic mass during the mid-seventeenth century, when celebrating mass was outlawed by the Penal laws of 1695.  Word of mouth spread the time and day that mass might occur at a mass rock, and priests and congregation alike risked much to attend.    A bullaun stone from Rahan made it's way to Killlina. 

The garden is a small walled in affair, with stones carved with historical points in Irish history.  It's peaceful and pretty, a relaxing spot to visit when the day is fine and there's some time to kill between school pickups.  The mass rock itself has some very old initals carved in which I must get C2 to take rubbings of at some stage. 

Small discoveries for my spring visit included a broken egg shell

and a pretty shot of blackthorn blossom:

and the reason I don't trust myself with mycology.. they may look a bit like mushrooms, but those white gills would suggest otherwise.