It has been a sad old year, 2019. News broke in 2018 that Google Plus, the much derided social network, would close in April 2019.

January also saw me diagnosed with cancer, have a tumour removed and in March receive chemotherapy.

Both of these things have it seems coincided.

Sunset from one of my favourite vantage points, looking west towards the setting sun.

It has been a difficult year so far, 2019, a diagnosis of cancer in January, an operation to remove a large tumour and this week, at the end of March, chemotherapy.

At each stage as throughout the past 20 years, photography has been a big part of my life.

It's no secret that Ireland is a scenic place, very often visitors are drawn to the big open landscapes, the famous places such as the Cliffs of Moher, Dingle or the Giant's Causeway.

But there are many fine places to be found in other parts of the Emerald Isle.

On my travels around the back roads of Ireland, I was looking for an old graveyard beside a river.

Polarising filters, also known as polarisers or circular polarisers are essential filters in any photographer's kit.

Usually in the form of a screw-in filter, polarisers block out some polarised light allowing only light travelling in one direction to pass through the filter to reach the sensor.

Simply, we use polarisers for one reason - to reduce glare or reflected light from objects or subjects. 

Dublin Bay is a UNESCO Biosphere - a protected area designated important for wildlife.

Since 1981 the beach and dunes, pictured here, at Bull Island in Dublin Bay have been a Biosphere, in 2015 the whole bay was brought into that designation including the Baily Lighthouse on Howth Head.

Dublin is a fine city of wide avenues and cobbled streets lined with pubs.

Famed for its nightlife the world over, Dublin has more pubs than any other county or city in Ireland.

With approximately 750 pubs, that figure was a lot more in the past, Dublin's pubs are often cited by tourists and visitors to the city as one of the key reasons to visit Ireland.

Here, people enjoying an evening out in Temple Bar stand outside the most photographed pub in Ireland, The Temple Bar. 

Panoramic Ireland made a return visit to the Antrim Coast this week saw me leading a photography workshop to capture the landscapes and seascapes of this geologic region of Ireland that includes the Causeway Coast, home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Giant's Causeway.

Approximately 8m in height, Glenariff waterfall is located deep in its own valley in the Glens of Antrim, easy to find by the sound of its thunderous roar and along a wooden walkway that takes you along the edge and across the steep, narrow, damp valley.

The West of Ireland - what does it conjure up in your imagination?

For me, the imagination is real, a place I visit and explore and enjoy and live in often. Those wide open spaces, rugged mountains of weathered rock just holding their own against the creeping boglands that cover the region.

This is a scene that conveys that western image, the bogland looking russety and the mountains just as I described above, ancient and just protruding enough to catch low cloud seemingly wisping across the gentle slopes.

I wrote last year about the end of winter, the green of spring and in that post I used an image of shamrocks with water droplets.

Just today, Saint Patrick's Day (17th March) I photographed a similar scene of water droplets on leaves and the bright sunlight glints in the fresh raindrops.

Shamrocks are of course a well known symbol of Ireland made famous, the legend goes, by Saint Patrick who used the three leaves on one stem to explain the Christian Holy Trinity to the Irish pagans that he was converting.

Street photography is an interesting pursuit, often requiring more patience than landscape photography.

Street photography often suits inclement weather, but more often than not it suits bright, sunshiny, direct light.