Generally the north eastern slopes are more shattered by ice action, as low winter sun does not replace heat lost to the wind when conditions are below freezing.

I never fail to try to imagine the original wall builders when high up on these Clare hills. Imagine leaving a simple farm homestead in the morning, climbing a difficult hill, building perhaps a few yards of wall and returning day after day in all weathers until it is all done. Each wall must surely contain hundreds of tons of rock - all hand-laid. The builders presumably were small farmers and their sons - always making the hard choices of which project should get their limited time and efforts. No power tools, no safety clothing, no sustenance only what they could carry, and their work has survived for hundreds of years.

All groundworks and car parks constructed as part of the project, which was stopped by protest and litigation, have now been obliterated, and the hazel scrub is slowly  regaining its dominance over the reinstated clays.

Web Page of the Burren Action Group

The Kodak film box (lower left) gives a scale to the plant, which could be many decades old. I am told that if you were to bring a seed from such a bush to a less harsh location, it would grow tall and erect rather than low and creeping like its parent.

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