North of the Shannon the coast changes character. Kerry is mountains falling into the sea; Clare and Connemara are limestone, bare rock and horizontal light. It is thinner country, and it suits paint better than it suits photographs.
Three paintings from this stretch of The Painter's Road are now available as prints.
The Cliffs of Moher, early
A million and a half people a year come to the Cliffs of Moher, and most of them arrive between eleven and four. Go early and it is a completely different place: cool low light coming across the water, the layered rock face falling away, and almost nobody on the path. The cliffs are famously difficult to paint because the scale refuses to sit on a page — the trick, if there is one, is the light rather than the height. See the print →
If you are in this part of Clare, our walking guide to County Clare covers the coast either side of it.
Dún Aonghasa
A semicircular stone fort on Inis Mór, set at the lip of a three-hundred-foot cliff with nothing beyond it but the Atlantic. It is around three thousand years old. There is no barrier at the edge and there never has been, and people lie flat on their stomachs to look over.
Nobody is certain what it was for — fortress, ceremonial site, both. What is not in doubt is that whoever built it chose the most dramatic position on the island and then built something that has outlasted every explanation anyone has offered for it. See the print →
The Sky Road
A loop out of Clifden that climbs along the headland, and one of the few roads in Ireland whose name is an accurate description. Islands scattered in the bay below, Connemara opening away behind, and the whole of it about eleven kilometres long. Best driven anticlockwise, and best in the evening, when the light comes in low off the Atlantic and lies along the water between the islands. See the print →
All three are plates from The Painter's Road. Prints are made to order on premium paper or canvas — browse the full collection.