Jul 202015
I went to the South Connemara Gaeltacht last week, for the annual MacDara’s Island pilgrimage. We went further south, across a series of bridges, to the remote Mweenish Island, which has a spectacular example of machair habitat. Machair is a sandy grassland, found only on the exposed coasts of the western seaboard of Ireland and Scotland. It is formed when calcareous sand is blown inland and depends on low-input traditional farming practices to maintain its biodiversity.
The machair on Mweenish island is home to a wonderful array of wild flowers, the most spectacular of which is the pyramidal orchid, which is dotted all over the dunes in large numbers.