The question is always: Does it snow in Ireland? Well, there aren't many days in the year when Ireland has snow, really only a few in a typical year and November is an unusual month to have a wee bit of the white stuff.

2024 has seen somewhat of a good dusting over the west and south of Ireland as well as the north. Actually, as is usual for Ireland, above 300 metres above sea level but there has been widespread disruption in places even lower.

Here, a snow-dusted landscape scene with a bright pink-orange sky behind, indicating according to time honoured tradition, the old phrase (red sky at night, shepherd's delight) that a good day tomorrow will follow, even if only tomorrow - ahead of Storm Bert set to hit Ireland this weekend.

Whether there is snow or not, Ireland is a scenic and at times magical place to photograph. Join one of Panoramic Ireland's photography workshops and tours in Dublin, Wicklow, Antrim, Connemara, Donegal and beyond to find scenes like these.

Panoramic Ireland's tours and workshops run all year round, when it's snowing like here in November or when it's roasting hot in July.

After an unusually warm start to November this year temperatures are taking a nosedive this week with colder than usual weather on the way for Ireland.

Snowfall accumulations are forecast for the northern half of Ireland and our northerly neighbours in Scotland have already had much more in the way of snow over high ground due to the presence of an artic airmass bringing cold air down from the north pole.

We might get a chance to venture into the wild mountains covered in white.

Join me to photograph in the Irish mountains during winter 2024-2025. 

Workshops and tours are available Monday to Sunday Sunrise to Sunset and are suitable for beginners to advanced photographers.

To find out more see the various booking pages on the site or simply, contact me to send a message of enquiry.

We might not get snow but we'll get great images!

It has been a strange year, 2024. A lot has happened over the past number of months, not least the opening up of new social media site Bluesky.

I have at last joined, along with millions of others - a number which is growing daily.

Anyway, here is my account https://bsky.app/profile/travelimages.bsky.social so if you're there stop by and say hello.

Cormorants are large seabirds well adapted to swimming and diving. You'll often see them floating, almost submerged on the sea, a river or a lake or standing on rocks with wings outstretched drying.

Broigheall is the Irish name and Phalacrocorax carbo is the latin name for these birds which are found extensively throughout Ireland.

Easy to confuse with shags, usually cormorants will have a white patch, as seen in the image above, around the thigh and also cormorants are more likely to be found inland even at lake and river sites.

Shags have a steeper forehead rising from the bill which is marked by a crest of feathers and almost always in Ireland remain coastal.

If you are wondering how seabirds get airborne, here's an interesting sequence from the west of Ireland.

Here, a lone cormorant taking off from the calm surface of a lake in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland shows that it is basically running on water, you can see the splashes of water kicked up by those webbed feet as its wings begin to generate lift.

Quite a sight, a fine sunny summer's day and the sounds of wildlife all around.

Finally airborne.

Join me, Panoramic Ireland, to photograph in the Irish countryside with guidance on locations and how to photograph in different scenes and scenarios. Now taking bookings for 2025.

A cloudy summer's day in the west of Ireland, 2008, and the crowd enthusiastically await the arrival of the cyclists in the Tour of Ireland.

Salthill, on the edge of Galway City marked the end of stage three of the five stage race and the world's greatest sprinter, Mark Cavendish, was making sure of a third win out of three on the flat sprint finish.

This cyclist, from the Isle of Man, a 35-stage winner of the Tour de France, more than any other in the race's 111-year history has retired after winning his final race in the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium.

The previous day, in Loughrea, County Galway, a pair of excited fans declared "The world's greatest cyclist is racing right here in Loughrea!" And that accolade coming only three years after turning professional, having won four stges at the Tour de France a month before.

I had the privilege of photographing Mark Cavendish, known as the Manx Missile, in 2008 on the Tour of Ireland and again in 2015 on the Tour de France.

The cycling world will miss one of its all time greats.

Antrim rockers Therapy? sold out Dublin's iconic Olympia Theatre on Dame Street on Halloween night, while thousands gathered for the ghost parade on O'Connell Street.

Playing their iconic Troublegum album in full the band brought their usual energy to the scenic, and famous, interior of the Olympia to start their European tour on the 30th anniversary of its release.

This was my third time photographing Therapy?, both previous occasions in Belfast, this the first time in Dublin.

The year 2024 has certainly blessed us with plenty of opportunity to photograph the Northern Lights or aurora borealis here in Ireland.

Last night's amazing display coincided with my visit to a calm west of Ireland lake, photographing throughout the evening in different directions to make the most of the ever-changing celestial light show that is the aurora.

I wasn't in one of the dark sky locations, so I did have some light pollution at times, but the peacefulness of photographing the natural dance of colours across the sky with reflections recorded below.

Now, we can't predict the aurora very well here in Ireland but a typical photography workshop with me here at Panoramic Ireland can see you photographing such scenes.

To find out more, send me a message.

The much-maligned herring gull, Larus argentatus which is known in Irish as Faoileán scadán, seen here soaring and gliding above stormy waves on the Atlantic off the north coast of Ireland.

Seagulls in general may be associated with loud, aggressive food stealing behaviour but herring gulls are currently on the UK's Red List for endangered species.

In Northern Ireland, herring gulls experienced a population increase during the 1950s-1970s, in the Seabird Colony Register census from 1985-1988 there were 17,561 pairs of herring gulls in NI while in a follow-up survey, the Seabird 2000 census, only 722 pairs were recorded.

Ireland has lost large numbers of herring gulls in recent decades and it would seem that the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland have seen the largest declines in herring gull numbers in recent decades.

Today, September 22nd 2024, marks the autumn equinox as the Sun passes Earth's equator at 13:44.

The equinox marks the point of equal night and day throughout the world although at certain latitudes, such as in Ireland, this won't happen for a few more days.

But it's fair to say that it's as close to the point of shorter days than nights in the northern hemisphere and lengthening in the southern hempisphere that we have, especially as the Sun is rising due east and setting due west.

The equilux is the actual point of equal day and night in any location and as mentioned it occurs a few days after the autumn equinox, in spring it occurs a few days before the spring equinox.

Hours of daylight will shorten until the winter solstice and then we will and lengthening again.

In the meantime, expect images of the colour that autumn brings to the Irish countryside.

Why not join me in September, October, November and beyond to photograph Irish landscapes.

A calm evening close to sunset with cloud obscuring the best of the western sky over the edge of Ireland.

Yet it's still a scenic view as a few breaks in the cloud allows the orange-red sun rays through to briefly illuminate the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Panoramic Ireland's photography tours and workshops are running all through autumn, winter and into 2025 here on the west of Ireland Atlantic or in the urban streets of Dublin, Belfast, Cork and more.