The shortest day of the year has arrived in Ireland and the winter solstice occurred at just after 10:00 today, December 21st.

From here, the winter keeps on for many weeks until the first day of spring but along the way, every day the day length increases by just a little.

Here, in the west of Ireland blue hour ushers in the night; the last remnants of daylight fades lower in the sky as cloud builds to obscure the last warming glow from the western sky.

It's winter now and my mind turns to coastal landscapes.

Here, one from the Antrim Coast of Sheep Island.

Crashing waves batter both sides of the small island, for millennia a well known landmark off this part of the Causeway Coast but now more famous from its appearance in HBO's Game of Thrones.

Sheep Island rises some 30 metres above the North Atlantic with mostly sheer cliffs, a thin layer of soil on top gives a green colour particularly in spring. In centuries past, local farmers would graze sheep out here being able to land only on the calmest of days.

Some doubt that landing a vessel here with sheep is possible, but on a calm day and good local knowledge this would be a difficult, but not impossible, task.

Sheep Island is home to a large proportion of Ireland's population of the northern European sub-species of cormorant and is a protected habitat.

You can just see the coast of Scotland, faintly on the horizon under the grey cloud to the right of Sheep Island in this image.

Ireland is a small country, there is no doubt about that but it has surprising variation in geography across its landscape of 486km by 275km.

Here, one of the best known mountains in the country - especially around Dublin - is the Sugarloaf, the tallest peak seen here just right of centre.

This image comes from winter, on a Panoramic Ireland photography workshop in the Irish mountains.

I often get asked about how the weather is in Ireland in winter.

Well, it's hard to say anything definitive but in general, Ireland is green all year round including in winter.

Just like in the image above from the west of Ireland in December.

Typically a winter daytime temperature will be around 5C but colder conditions and snow sometimes occur. The mild winter temperature is what allows the grass to keep its healthy green colour, blanketing the countryside.

Just off the track through the snow, I found tracks and what looked like a good spot for a photograph so I headed up slope and into the deeper snow.

Only a fox had been through this part of the mountains since snow blanketed the heathery hillsides with fine, deep white powder.

I wandered for a while, photographed and spent time listening to the sounds of nature.

Exploring Ireland is filled with moments like these and other countless, priceless moments that make a visit to the Emerald Isle so special.

Join me to photograph in the snow, on long summer evenings, with autumn foliage or spring greens.

Winter can be cold and monotone in places around the world, but here in Ireland it is more often than not a colourful time of year interspersed with snowy days.

Most of the time, snow is absent even in the mountains except for the rare years.

Here we have the rugged, weathered mountains of the west of Ireland and the Atlantic looking calm.

Winter 2020 is far from over, currently we are having storms but there is still plenty of time for snow like this to blanket the mountains of Ireland.

Deep snow blankets the normally grassy landscape of the Irish mountains as sunset approaches.

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Ireland doesn't get a lot of snow but when it does it is a sight for sore eyes. Here the mountains of the west of Ireland sit icy white above the golden colours of the bogland landscape.

I have written about snow a lot before here on Panoramic Ireland, here are some more articles.

Armagh's Church of Ireland cathedral, dedicated to Saint Patrick, seen here during the snow storm known as Beast from the East and Storm Emma in March 2018.

Join me on one of my photography tours of Ireland as we photograph every subject from street photography to landscapes, snow to sun and food to architecture.

Don't forget the pine martens of course, that's nature and wildlife.

A few weeks ago I was hiking in the Irish mountains covered with snow and thought to myself that this is probably the last time until the end of the year that I will be able to photograph snow.

Not that snow is impossible to have in Ireland, at high ground especially snow may last into April.