The mountains were moulded in stone and shaped in recessive curves or angled like pyramids; in the valleys rock masses were piled like worn-out cities and small stretches of plain had the breadth of desert. The bare impact of curve and line was very satisfying and opened up a sense of infinite distance. Light played strange tricks at dawn and dusk, slanting colours across great stone tables where crevices spouted out a glare of wild flowers. Through the Burren there is little soil; the dull grey surface is broken by the light-torn walls of a cannonaded castle, gutted early churches or the massive walls of stone forts. Hither Cromwell had forced the first batch of delanded Irish from other provinces. They found 'not enough wood to hang a man, enough water to drown him or earth to bury him'.
-Ernie O'Malley
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