Kerry Ireland

Tralee , the county town, is situated at the shallow head of a bay far to the westward. The small stream on which it stands has been widened and deepened to allow of the passage of coasting craft to the town, but larger vessels berth at Fenit, a few miles westward. Killorglin is an important marketing centre. Dingle , the most westerly town in Europe, lies in a sheltered bay near the extremity of the mountainous Dingle Peninsula. Killarney is inland, near the beautiful lakes of the same name, with wild mountains to the west and south and low, boggy uplands to the north. Kenmare is beautifully situated at the head of the noble sea-inlet known as Kenmare river : steamers berth a short distance below the town. Castleisland and Listowel lie in the less picturesque country to the north. The famous Lakes of Killarney lie at the eastern end of Macgillicuddys Reeks, the loftiest mountain range in Ireland. They consist of a tolerably large sheet of water, the Lower Lake or Lough Leane, the small and scarcely distinct Muckross Lake, and another small and very irregular sheet of water, the Upper Lake; the last lies among high hills, and is connected with the others by a broad slow stream, the Long Reach. Different agencies have been at work in the production of these lakes

The Lower Lake and Muckross Lake lie on the limestone where it abuts on the older non-soluble slates which form the Reeks- just as the Corrib-Mask-Conn chain of lakes lies on the edge of the Central Plain where it rests against the old rocks of Conncmara and West Mayo. The eastern shores of the Lower Lake, where the limestone prevails, arc low and deeply indented, while the western shore, formed of slates, is steep and straight. The, Lower Lake owes its origin chiefly to solution, the limestone having been dissolved in the irregular manner characteristic of such action. The Upper Lake is quite different in character, with shores formed of smoother and rounder ribs of rock which plunge into deep water. Its basin is the result of the scooping action of land ice during the Glacial Period. The presence of the towering summits of the Reeks immediately to the west produces much shelter from wind, and also a heavy rainfall; the position of Killarney relative to the Atlantic, which surrounds Kerry on three sides, tends to remarkable mildness of climate. Hence we find in this area beautiful woods which harbour plants and animals belonging to regions far southward–to Spain and the Mediterranean ; and hence also we find there a wonderful luxuriance of ferns and mosses, and other plants which love continual moisture

The glaciation of the south was of much shorter duration than that of the country farther north. This is not to be wondered at, for Munster appears to have lain just inside the margin of the British ice-sheets, and in this connection it may be borne in mind that signs of glaciation are not found in the adjoining island farther south than Bristol and the Thames valley. The hills in south-east Cork thus emerged at an earlier period than did those of the west, and upon the newly bared surface a copious land drainage was soon established. Glaciers still occupied the valleys however, and it is to rivers that flowed along the sides of these glaciers that we owe the stratified gravels so common in the Lee valley and elsewhere.

In some cases the earlier courses of the streams were blocked up either with ice or drift, and the diverted streams cut new channels which are. now either dry or supplied by insignificant streams.

The time immediately following the Glacial period was one of severe winters, when snows accumulated, giving rise to heavy floods in spring. Under these conditions the sharp V-shaped north and south transverse gorges were excavated, and the materials removed from them were spread out in the form of fans where these gorges open out on the broader eastward valleys. The main rivers, too, carried considerably more water than they do now, and thus they were able to bring down the gravels that are found in such quantity in the lower reaches of the valleys.

As milder conditions came on the. glaciers diminished in size and in length. They retreated up the valleys, but this retreat was interrupted repeatedly by periods of rest. These periods are marked by morainic mounds which stretch across the valleys from side to side. In some instances most of the materials of these moraines have been removed by the river and only scattered mounds indicate their former extension. A fine example of a moraine on a small scale is to be seen in the Gap of Dunloe, west of Killarney. Here the large lateral moraine of the east side of the Gap joins up with the terminal moraine lower down, thus forming a horse-shoe embankment in the valley.

Moraines arc found in most of the valleys in the Macgillicuddy Reeks district. About Killarney, and in the valley east of this around Lough Guitane, are fine examples, while another fairly well preserved one occurs in the Sheen valley south of Kenmare.

One of the most striking features of a recently glaciated country is the abundance of its lakes. These arc formed in various ways. Sometimes they are excavated rock basins filled, with water, as in Lough Auger in the Gap of Dunloe ; in other cases they occupy hollows between the surrounding mounds of drift, as in Cork Lough ; or, again, a moraine may block up a valley and a lake be formed behind. There are a very large number of moraine-dammed lakes among the Kerry (Holiday Cottages, Kerry, Ireland) hills, and the Lakes of Killarney themselves arc banked on the north by morainic material. In the southern part of the Comcragh plateau are several lakes of quite, a different type, the most noted of these being Lake Coumshingaun. Ascending one of the branches of the Clodiach river we mount a series of moraines with huge blocks of Old Red Sandstone scattered about upon them. Behind the highest and last of these is the lake itself, which is bounded on the farther side by a semi-circular wall of cliff rising sheer from the waters edge. This marks the spot where the remains of a glacier sheltered during the latter part of the glacial epoch. As milder conditions came on the ice melted and formed a lake. This was fed by small streams from the high land behind the cliff and eventually rose to the level of the lowest part of the moraine dam, over which it flowed and easily carved out a bed in the loosely compacted embankment.

Many of these coom, corrie or cirque lakes are found in the mountainous parts of Kerry (Accommodation, Kerry, Ireland). Facing the sea, on the northern side of the Dingle peninsula are fine examples, whilst at the head of the Glenbeigh valley, near Cahersi-veen is a series of seven-the finest in Ireland.

The drift covering about Listowel and Tralee Bay is made up largely of limestone debris, but in the centre of Kerry grits and shales are the. principal constituents

Posted on April 16th, 2008 under History. Tags: Bristol, Castleisland, Central Plain, Comcragh, Conncmara, Coumshingaun, Dingle, Dingle Peninsula, Dunloe, Europe, Fenit, Glacial Period, Glenbeigh, Ireland, Kenmare, Killarney, Killorglin, Lakes, Lakes of Killarney, Listowel, Lough Auger, Lough Leane, Macgillicuddy Reeks, Macgillicuddys Reeks, Mediterranean, Muckross, Muckross Lake, Munster, Sheen, Spain, Thames, Tralee, valleys, West Mayo. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.