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Friday 15 June 2018

Wessex to West Cork - a photographer's adventure!

Three Castle Head, The Mizen, West Cork, Eire

This is just a picture to reassure you that I have actually been to all the remarkable and exciting places I'm about to tell you about! Once you have seen a bit of this and realised that it's a place for you and your camera, scroll down to the bottom of the posting for a bit more info on how you can visit ....



Three Castle Head is at the end of the Mizen Peninsula. If you have ever tuned in to the Radio 4 shipping weather forecast then this is one of the Irish promontories that thrust out into the Atlantic in sea area Fastnet. It has Atlantic weather: windy, wet, furious, unforgiving, spectacular, inspiring exciting, sunny, warm, freezing, clear and foggy - usually all in one day. The light seems to come from all around you with an astonishing clarity. The main quality is it's blueness, so coming from smoggy south east England I had to change all the settings on the camera so as not to over-expose every image. Most of the images below are taken with a circular polarising filter or I waited until the sun was slightly filtered by cloud.

The landscape is Medieval, the stone walls and fields have not changed in centuries.
Dry stone wall study, Mizen Head
Wonderful subjects are everywhere you look: wild flowers, stone wall, castles, cattle, amazing sea views sothwards towards the Cork coast and northwards to the Beara Peninsula, crashing waves that seem to climb the 100 metre high cliffs and constantly birds flying over head, riding the wind and calling around you.

Three Castles 
The Medieval history is what gives Three Castle Head its name. Dun Lough castle (Dun a Locha, "Fort of the Lake"). It is one of the castles built by the O'Mahoney clan. Donagh na Aimrice O’Mahoney (Donagh The Migratory - so named for his pilgrimages to the Holy Land) built it in 1207, the O'Mahoney clan having been pushed ever westward by the invading Normans under Richard 'Stongbow' de Clare in 1170. 

The walls of the castle run from the massive sea cliffs to the lough which is itself defended by another wall at it's far end where it meet the other side of the promontory and some equally terrifying cliffs. It was an impregnable fortress with good supplies of food and water. The O'Mahoney descendants lived there until the 1620s. The last occupants with the O'Donahues who all died tragically by murder or suicide. A drop of their ghostly blood is said to fall each day into the lake from the largest tower.


Dun Lough Castle, Mizen

Dun Lough Castle, Mizen. The Beara Peninsula is just visible in the back ground.

Dun Lough Castle, Mizen

Dun Lough Castle, Mizen. Main entrance

Brave souls! A photographer peers over the edge of the cliffs into the maelstrom below

Dun Lough Castle, Mizen. The Castle never has many visitors, but there are usually a few folk around.

The main tower of Dun Lough Castle, Mizen. Black and white photography can really pay off here - the area is rich in patterns and high contrast opportunities.



The nearest village is Crookhaven, a lovely Atlantic coast fishing village. the welcome is typically fulsome and the Murphy's stout is delicious! There is, as you would imagine, great sea food here.



THE PLAN

OK, so the plan is to organise at least two trips a year for up to six photographers to West Cork. We stay at, or near to, the lovely Liss Ard Estate, Toe Head and Skibbereen. Here's a reminder of what they are like:

Lough Abisdealy

Lough Abisdealy
 And there are other amazing locations such as Lough Ine, a marine nature reserve.

Lough Ine
Lough Ine
And other great opportunities such as astrophotography in James Turrell's incredible Irish Sky Garden ...


The Irish Sky Garden.
More on this in a few weeks, but in the mean time just let me know if you are interested ...











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