Where the Dingle Coast Meets the Swell
Clogher Beach in early March is not what you’d call hospitable. This little cove on the Dingle Peninsula opens straight onto the Atlantic, and the swell hits the slate head-on; the spray goes up twice as high as the wave itself. I was there with Blarney Photography Club, all of us strung out along the…
Gold on the Mountain at Gougane Barra
The cloud had been sitting on the mountains all morning like a hat pulled down over its eyes, and then for about fifteen minutes the sun broke through low and side-on and set the entire rock face above Gougane Barra on fire. The golds and ambers were almost absurd. It was the kind of light…
The Lone Boat at O’Sullivan’s Cascade
There was a single boat on our little corner of the Lakes of Killarney. I’d walked down from O’Sullivan’s Cascade to join other photographers from Blarney Photography Club. They were busy photographing the same scene you see here and everything around them. We were enjoying the afternoon sunlight on a calm October day last year.
When the Atlantic Catches Fire
The cold at Cappagh Beach the morning I made this photo was the sort that makes you question every life choice that led you to a dark car park before dawn. The sunrise wasn’t that great but shortly before we left, the sun cracked through a gap in the cloud and turned the entire Atlantic…
St. Finbarr’s Oratory at Dawn
Nine exposures, three positions, and a lake disturbed by a biting wind. That’s what it took to stitch this panorama together at Gougane Barra just after dawn. The sky refused to cooperate with anything dramatic, so I leaned on the scene itself: the oratory sitting quietly on its spit of land, the water holding just…
Dawn Sentinel at Gougane Barra
A bunch of us arrived in Gougane Barra this morning to photograph the sunrise, only to be met with driving rain and mist and fog on the hills. A biting wind tore through clothes making for a missed opportunity for all of us. Luckily, within a few minutes of arriving, a glow could be seen…
Waiting for the Light
Nothing sorts the casual photographers from the committed ones quite like an early morning alarm on a Kerry beach in March. This lot from Blarney Photography Club were out on Cappagh Strand before first light, tripods planted in the wet sand, hoods up, waiting for whatever the sky decided to offer. The long exposure in…
The Cappagh Sentinel
The sun had risen about 40 minutes before and we were about to leave Cappagh Beach on the Dingle Peninsula when I saw a tree silhouetted against the sun.
Walking Into the Storm on the Dunes
A storm was rapidly approaching but the sun was still shining when I took this. Moments later the dark clouds in the background had blown over, leaving some of us drenched, and then it was bright and sunny again.
Silhouette at the Harbour Mouth
There’s a narrow window just after sunset when the sky goes absolutely wild, when the sun has dropped below the horizon but the light is still bouncing around in the atmosphere, and you get these incredible bands of colour stacking up from warm orange through pink into deep purple and navy. The navigation beacon at…
Silk and Moss in the Kerry Woods
Everyone knows Torc Waterfall in Killarney, but O’Sullivan’s Cascade is a hidden gem at the other end of the Lakes of Killarney. There is a popular legend surrounding the cascade that it was once owned by Fionn MacCumhal and whiskey rather than water flowed from it. O’Sullivan of Tomies is said to have been the…
Winter Light on a Forgotten Home
Nature is starting to take over this abandoned farmhouse on Harper’s Island in Co Cork. The old stone gateposts are still standing, the wire fence still technically there, but it’s clear nobody’s coming through that gate anymore. Places like this always make me wonder about the people who lived here: the dinners cooked, the fires…












