Glencar Waterfall

I love to photograph woodland, streams and waterfalls and Ireland has plenty of all three. As I've mentioned before, we don't claim to have the most, the biggest or the tallest of waterfalls and we don't have much forest cover in relation to our European neighbours, but we do have some of the best and accessible locations in Europe.

Glencar Waterfall is of course a prime example. About 10 years ago I passed it regularly but it was closed for over a year due to path building works. I didn't make it back until 2010 and I was pleased with the effort it took to get there. The weather wasn't wonderful for landscape photography with low cloud blanketing the country but it was perfect for this waterfall location.

WB Yeats wrote of Glencar in his 1886 poem The Stolen Child:

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.


Time to return soon I think, for some autumn colour.