Saint Valentine, the 3rd century Italian martyr whose feast day is celebrated on the 14th of February is not commonly associated with Dublin, yet his remains are housed in a reliquary shrine in the Irish capital.

How did this come about you might well ask, he was unlikely to have visited Ireland in his lifetime.

Some snow in the Irish mountains, I knew that winter wasn't over yet back in January.

After quite an adventure where the roads were snowbound today, having to reverse down a mountain side as progress was non-grippy, slippy and, in the end, impossible.

In fact the car ahead of me had already run into troubles on the steep incline, there were patches of compacted snow and ice across the road, particularly where sunlight hadn't reached over the past few days, after all I was climbing up the northern slopes of the mountains.

Dublin's Forty Foot is a famous swimming location, perhaps one of the most famous in the world, attracting the likes of Loudon Wainwright III when he visits Ireland and thousands of locals on Christmas Day each year.

Despite the name, the Forty Foot is not home to waves forty feet high, nor is the water forty feet deep. The Forty Foot was home to the British Army's 40th Regiment of Foot, hence the name Forty Foot or 40 Foot.

Anyway if it was forty feet deep we would have to rename it to "The 12.2 Metre" or "The Twelve Metre".

Here is one of my videos made at the Forty Foot on Christmas Day 2018, when thousands of people turn out to swim in the cold Irish Sea, many for charity and good causes but also for a challenge and some fun.

An interesting sight that you often won't see in Ireland, the elusive Eurasian otter has been on the IUCN Red List for some time, classified as Near Threatened and a species in decline, Lutra lutra is one of the finest animals to see in nature.

Here as I was travelling along Ireland's River Suir in County Tipperary, I saw this busy otter swimming, diving and fishing on the fast flowing river.

It was an impressive hour, the otter would work its way upstream, then dive under water to re-emerge usually with a fish.

Here it is seen with what looks like a decent sized trout. This is a big creature, male otters can reach 1.3m nose to tail and they look impressive when you see them cutting through the water's surface.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest animals to see, along with Ireland's other elusive mammal the pine marten.

Situated in the corner of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland's largest county, the remains of Harry Avery's castle sit atop a hill on the edge of a valley.

The twin structures projecting up here were actually an unusual tower house rather than an outer defensive gatehouse.

Belonging to a 14th century Irish chieftain it was destroyed in the early 17th century by English forces who took stone from the site.

This scene reminded me of another castle, more famous, from my own County Antrim which I also photographed with a cow in front: https://panoramicireland.com/photo-tours-blog/cow-in-front-of-dunluce-castle-causeway-coast-antrim-northern-ireland

January is over, spring has begun in Ireland - according to tradition, and colour is coming back into the landscape.

Winter is colourful in Ireland, the countryside remains green all year round but at the the end of January we see the emergence of cherry blossom, snowdrops and crocus.

The snowdrop galanthus nivelis is not native, nor is the crocus (here crocus etruscus) but both will be found in gardens and the wild now, many varieties of cherry are found too although the wild cherry is native.

Today, February 1st, is historically regarded as being the first day of spring here in Ireland, spring is known as Imbolc in ancient Ireland.

February 1st is also Saint Brigid's Day, Saint Brigid is one of Ireland's three patron saints along with Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille.

Interestingly, the dandelion is associated traditionally with Saint Brigid as it flowered closest to the festival so that is what I have posted here, a bumblebee on a dandelion in Ireland.

The Sperrins are Northern Ireland's most extensive upland area, the mountains are very low reaching only 678m at Sawel with very little prominence.

Here they are seen at sunset with bright golden winter sunlight under a fine sky.

This is an isolated area, often cut off by winter snows and with almost no public transport but few people live in the Sperrins.

Ah, the notoriously bad weather in Ireland. Well there's a reputation that the Irish climate is unsuitable for photography. But it's not all true.

Sure there are stormy days, rainy days and grey sky days. But there are plenty of blue sky days, sunny days, calm days and even on those bad days there is always something to photograph.

It has been a foggy few days here and I have been photographing in some new locations, while I'm working on the images here is one, the picture above, of a fabulously foggy day in the Irish countryside taken during summer.

This post marks Panoramic Ireland's 500th blog post here on panoramicirelanc.com.

A year after treatment for cancer and I am still posting of photographic adventures throughout Ireland.

The image above is of Cork, the River Lee at night and Saint Finbarre's Cathedral. I photographed this fine scene for Eater, the world's most popular food website as part of their Where to eat in 2020 and Cork was one of the few cities in Europe to be on the list. Have a look at the images and Cork article here.