So I just watched the nature documentary "Wild Ireland: Kingdom of Stone", about the apparently world famous karst landscape between County Clare and County Galway known as the Burren. I admit I never heard about it before! Or maybe I did, since parts of this docu reminds me of - surprise - other documentaries about western Ireland.
Animals shown include the pine marten, Daubenton´s bat, whooper swans and the butterfly known as the marsh fritillary. In the Atlantic Ocean we also find the finback whale (the world´s second largest animal) and the basking shark (the world´s second largest fish). The basking sharks occasionally gather in one place and swim in a large circle, nobody really knows why. But yes, it does look majestic.
The Burren also has an interesting human history. Here we find Neolithic grave monuments, abandoned churches and monasteries, and a mysterious tower once inhabited by none other than W B Yeats (who apparently saw whooper swans as near-divine). Indeed, the landscape is man-made in the sense that Neolithic farmers cut down all the trees, presumably to give room for agriculture and cattle.
"The Kingdom of Stone" has a romantic (or Romantic) undertone, and frequently shows ravens (?) flying across the bizarre landscape of karst and ruins. Ahem, Ireland is a modern, globalized territory these days...
Still, could be interesting on a boring Wednesday evening.
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