These landscapes are great for photography, particularly in the late summer and early autumn with characterful colour, more to follow on this subject.
Fraoch is also the Irish Gaelic word for fury or fierceness.
I heard recently that in parts of Ireland the term freeheen was used, somewhat derogatorily, to describe country folk who came into the towns to sell turf (peat, a fuel used in Ireland for domestic heating - it's essentially dried soil from the heather-covered bogs of Ireland). They topped the stacks of turf with little bundles of heather and the name derives from the diminutive form of fraoch.
Join Panoramic Ireland, that's me by the way, on a photographic visit to the open heather-clad hillsides of Ireland.
