The Burren and the Aran Islands form a region renowned for its geology, flora and archaeology. Possibly the greatest interest is in its archaeology but the ancient monuments are often perceived as shrouded in mystery and beyond explanation. This work presents these archaeological interpretations.

A guide to some of the best walking routes in the region, with lucid descriptions and additional information to enhance the walkers' enjoyment and appreciation of the place. Each route, prefaced with a quick-reference summary, is illustrated with a clear sketch map.

The Burren and the Aran Islands form a region renowned for its geology, flora and archaeology. Possibly the greatest interest is in the archaeology but the ancient monuments are often perceived as shrouded in mystery and beyond explanation. Recent studies have shed considerable light on the functions of these monuments and the people who built them. This book presents these archaeological interpretations in an attractive and engaging manner. After a brief introduction, the book is divided into two parts, the Burren and the Aran Islands. Significant sites are highlighted while "panel" features explain more tangential topics, e.g., how to build a wedge tomb. Contents include Colonization and Early Settlement, From Neolithic to Bronze Age. The Celts, The Arrival of Christianity, Early Medieval Chiefs and their Stone Forts, and finally Later Tower Houses and Military Constructions. In this heavily illustrated book, captions are often extensive and can be read separately or with the text. Overall it can be read cover-to-cover or dipped into. Dr. Jones' writing transforms the dry academic material of excavation reports and archaeological inventories into an engaging and understandable story. He is also the author of "Wild Plants of the Burren & Aran Islands which is available from Dufour.

Long recognized as perhaps the greatest non-fiction writer at work in Ireland, for his vast, polymathic accounts of nature and culture in the Aran Islands and Connemara, Tim Robinson is also an essayist of genius whose fascinations range across the globe. In Experiments on Reality, he shines the light of his intelligence on his own life, and on some of the most fascinating questions in science and culture. Robinson brings us to his boyhood in Yorkshire, National Service in Malaya in the 1950s, and his years as a visual artist in Istanbul, Vienna and London. He revisits some of the scenes of his researches for the maps he made of Aran and Connemara, places that continue to throw up remarkable stories and puzzles. And he performs astonishing literary thought-experiments, playing with the boundaries of the essay form, scientific inquiry, and storytelling. Experiments on Reality is a masterpiece from one of the great minds of our time. 'One of the greatest of all landscape writers ... When the material world is brought forth for us so beautifully, with such rapt attention and illuminating insight, we are reminded of how lucky we are to be part of it' Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times PRAISE FOR THE CONNEMARA TRILOGY: 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English' Robert MacFarlane, Spectator 'Robinson is a marvel ... the supreme practitioner of geo-graphy, the writing of places' Fintan O'Toole, Observer Books of the Year 'One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists ... This is a book that does justice, in every sense of that phrase, to the frequently betrayed people whose stories it incarnates, and to their strange and beautiful corner of the world' Joseph O'Connor, Guardian 'A masterpiece of travel and topographical writing and a miraculous, vivid and engrossing meditation on landscape and history and the sacred mood of places' Colm Tóibín, Irish Times Books of the Year 'One of the finest of contemporary prose stylists' John Burnside, Irish Times 'He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights.' John Banville, Guardian 'Breathtaking ... the West of Ireland has found its ultimate laureate' Patricia Craig, TLS 'Dazzling ... an indubitable classic' Giles Foden, Condé Nast Traveller

The Burren and Aran Islands are renowned worldwide for their beautiful wild flowers and plants. Charles Nelson has selected 120 of the most widely occurring plus a number of special plants. Each plant is illustrated by a colour photograph showing it in the wild.

In 1934, the people of Inishmaan learn that the Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to the neighbouring island to film his documentary Man of Aran. No one is more excited than Billy, an unloved and crippled boy whose chief occupation has been gazing at cows and yearning for a girl who wants no part of him. For Billy is determined to cross the sea and audition for the Yank. As news of his audacity ripples through his rumour-starved community, The Cripple of Inishmaan becomes a merciless portrayal of a world so comically cramped and mean-spirited that hope is an affront to its order. With this bleak yet uproariously funny play, Martin McDonagh fulfilled the promise of his award-winning The Beauty Queen of Leenane while confirming his place in a tradition that extends from Synge to O'Casey and Brendan Behan.

This book provides a general account of the flora of Connemara and the Burren, with details of the distribution of the various species.