Another beautiful evening here in the west of Ireland and what an evening it was.

Any of you who joined me for a chat earlier will have seen and heard how calm the conditions were, just a few ripples on the surface of the water created interesting reflections of the passing clouds overhead.

And the sun sets on another day, another Saint Patrick's Day in this case.

To anyone I was chatting to earlier, here is the finished sunset image. 

Hello and welcome to the redesigned panoramicireland.com. I have been working hard on the site over recent weeks and have now had some time to get out with the camera on my own terms.

I've led several photography workshops in Galway over the past few days and today I had a day to myself that didn't include website designing.

It's Saint Patrick's Day, the 17th March, so I went to see the nearest parade and that was Galway. It was sunny again today just like last year in the small Atlantic coast city.

The west of Ireland is as blessed as many parts of the world with beautiful sunsets, the sun dropping towards the horizon, its light skimming across a few thousand miles of ocean uninterrupted.

The sun sets over the watery landscape, flooded after a long winter season of heavy rain, the wettest winter on record in Ireland. Grasses slowly regrowing in a matter of hours despite being submerged under the cold lake water and abused by wave after wave for months over the many dark hiemal days.

Snow rarely lasts for more than a few days when it falls in Ireland. Save for in the high ground, above 600m where it might persist for the winter months on northern slopes.

So on waking today when I saw snow in the mountains it was a sensible decision to venture in search of the white stuff.

It's true, the sun does shine in Ireland, unfortunately it is not always that way when planning a day of photography.

There can be few places in Ireland as scenic as the Dingle Peninsula, Ireland's and Europe's most westerly point. And of course it sits on the Wild Atlantic Way.

It had been a while since I visited the rugged, mountain-filled land of rocks and beaches and a photography workshop with Patrick from Chicago was the obvious place to head to.

There have been a lot of rainy, windy and stormy days this winter. We have now passed Storm Imogen making the next official storm number ten of the season.

Today though was a beautiful day, I awoke to frost and clear reflections on the lake. The sky was blue as fasr as could be seen so I took a drive around the west of Ireland, clearly not all of it as that would be impossible in a day. It really would!

In the aftermath of Storm Desmond who swept across Ireland in the first week of December 2015 and despite warnings from infamous TV reporter Teresa Mannion these Irish men and women kept alive the brave daily tradition of swimming in the country's coastal waters year round.

Despite strong winds and heavy sea swells, the morning was bright and cheery. No sign of a clear sunrise for the photographer but plenty of soft sunlight that helped me to instruct my student during the early morning photography workshop close to Dublin on the Irish Sea.

Our morning's start was late as sunrise in Dublin in December is approx. 08:20, compared to an unsociable 04:55 in June.

I took a little trip to Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way that runs along its west coast.