E-whizz electric bike rental and tours

17/02/2025

Some great events coming up as part of the Burren Visitor Centre’s 50th anniversary celebrations!

F I F T Y • Y E A R S 🎈🎉🎂

As you’ll have heard us mention a good few times by now, the Burren Visitor Centre celebrates 50 years of being open this year.

As such, we have so much planned!

The full celebratory programme of events for the year is currently getting its final tweaks before we launch it, but we thought we’d start letting you in on a few tasters so you can start saving the dates!

So - here’s another to get in the diary!

On Saturday 17th May Sinead Keane will be joining us to talk us through the incredibly unique botany of the Burren! This is one not to be missed if it’s the flowers that really intrigue you!

In the spirit of community and celebration, ALL events this year are FREE!

However, seats will need to be booked so we know how many chairs to put out. The booking portal is already open on the 50th page of our website where we are starting to load all the events happening this year.

In the meantime, keep watching this space for deets of other things we have planned!

~

13/02/2025

Feral goat in the Burren. These goats are thought to be descendants of ancient domesticated animals kept for milk and meat. They are very shy, and move around over large areas of the Burren. This one was with at least 4 others in a scrubland near Lackareagh

20/01/2025

Burren stone walls: at Cahercommaun ring fort one side of the fort is protected by a sheer cliff face. This meant no need for high walls on that side. This is similar to Dun Aehghusa on Inis Mor in the Aran islands

18/01/2025

Burren stone walls: Medieval stone enclosure most likely for keeping small animals eg goats or sheep. This one is on the Burren uplands very near a 10th century ring fort.

16/01/2025

Burren walls: ring fort wall. Built ca 900AD. These walls were built up to 3m high and 1.5m wide. The photo shows how the wall was built wider at the bottom and sloping inwards to give better stability. All dry stone construction.

15/01/2025

Wedge tomb in the Burren built ca 2000 BC.

15/01/2025

Wedge Tomb in the Burren. There are many wedge tombs in the Burren, at least 80 have been recorded. They were built around 2000 BC. Most of these were single burials and would have been sealed, most likely with a mound of smaller stones on top.

14/01/2025

Burren walls: stacked stone wall with stile. Designed for a person or dog to pass through the gap, but keep the cattle in. The stacked wall style is found in areas of limestone pavement where the available stone is flat and is stacked at different angles to provide stability.

13/01/2025

Burren walls - the Machine or ‘JCB’ wall. This is the most modern version of the Burren dry stone wall. It is made possible only by the use of a digger to lift and put the limestone slabs in place. While these walls are controversial, they are still in keeping with the tradition: use the resources available to you!

12/01/2025

Altar cross from 12th century possibly. This unusual but very simply beautiful cross is positioned in a funeral altar in the graveyard at one of the many 12th century churches in the Burren in County Clare. The graveyard is still in use today.

11/01/2025

Burren stone wall. There are thousands of kilometres of stone walls in the Burren, some built over 5000 years ago. While the style and shape of these walls have varied over the years, the same methods are still used to build and repair them today. We will explore some of the variations here over the next couple of weeks.

10/01/2025

what a wonderful photo from Burren National Park of a fog bow in the Burren.

A fog bow on the famine relief road in the Burren National Park. Fog bows appear when a person is standing with fog in front and bright sun directly behind them. The smaller water droplets in fog means that the bow appears white as opposed to the colours seen in a rainbow 🌫🌈

09/01/2025

Glacial Erratic. This piece of Burren limestone was dropped by a retreating glacier in the last ice age, about 15000 years ago. These erratics occur all over the Burren, and it’s thought that the early farmers who settled here after arriving by boat from Southern Europe or North Africa, May have believed them to be sacred. This one is very close to the portal tomb at Poulnabrone and may have been a factor in the decision to build the tomb at this location.

07/01/2025

Kilfenora Cathedral’s spectacular Romanesque three light east window, dating from the 13th century, evidence of the wealth invested by the Bishops of Kilfenora at that time

06/01/2025

Noughaval Church in the Burren. There has been a church at Noughaval since the 12th century. This church building was actually moved here from its original location in Ballyvaughan approximately 15km away. No mean feat in the early 1940s!

05/01/2025

Winter in the Burren: part 4. Poulnabrone dolmen was constructed around 3500 BC and the remains of 33 people were found when it was excavated in the 1980s. It is a little older than Newgrange. Around the time it was built, people had a strong belief in the rebirth of the sun on the winter solstice. This time has long been celebrated in ancient Celtic tradition as a new beginning and there were many rituals around that celebration. A visit to Poulnabrone around that time may reward you with a more peaceful experience, and if you’re lucky, the low winter sun shining through the portal.

04/01/2025

The Burren in winter part 3: Kilfenora is home to one of the tallest Celtic Crosses in Ireland. The 12th century West Cross can be visited 365 days a year, standing in a field to the west of the Cathedral. The intense winter sunshine in the morning picks out the carvings on the eastern side so beautifully, with a deep blue sky as background. There were once 7 high crosses in Kilfenora, and the village itself was founded with the establishment of a monastery here in the 6th Century.

03/01/2025

The Burren in Winter, part 2. Cattle on the Winterage. Farmers in the Burren use farming practices that go back over a thousand years. Cattle stay outdoors in the winter on the high, dry limestone land, known locally as Winterage. This is a unique form of transhumance, and is very important for sustaining the landscape and the ecosystem of the Burren.