1.
County Cork
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County Cork is the largest and southernmost county of Ireland. It lies in the province of Munster and is named after the city of Cork, Cork County Council is the local authority for the county. Its largest settlements are Cork City, Ballincollig and Carrigaline, in 2016, the countys population was 542,196, making it the third most populous county in Ireland. There are two local authorities whose remit collectively encompasses the area of the county and city of Cork. The county, excluding Cork city, is administered by Cork County Council, both city and county are part of the South-West Region. For standardized European statistical purposes both Cork County Council and Cork City Council rank equally as first-level local administrative units of the NUTS3 South-West Region, there are 34 such LAU1 entities in the Republic of Ireland. For elections to Dáil Éireann, the county is divided into five constituencies—Cork East, Cork North–Central, Cork North–West, Cork South–Central, together they return 19 deputies to the Dáil. The county is part of the South constituency for the purposes of European elections, for purposes other than local government, such as the formation of sporting teams, the term County Cork is often taken to include both city and county. County Cork is located in the province of Munster and it borders four other counties, Kerry to the west, Limerick to the north, Tipperary to the north-east and Waterford to the east. Cork is the largest county in the state by land area and it is the largest of Munsters 6 counties by both population and area. The population of Cork city stood at 125,622 in 2016, the population of the entire county is 542,196 making it the states second most populous county and the third most populous county on the island of Ireland. The remit of Cork County Council includes some suburbs of the city not within the area of Cork City Council, there are 24 historic baronies in the county—the most of any county in Ireland. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, there are 253 civil parishes in the county. Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland, there are approximately 5447 townlands in the county, the Shehy Mountains are on the border with Kerry and may be accessed from the area known as Priests Leap, near the village of Coomhola. The Galtee Mountains are located across parts of Tipperary, Limerick, the upland areas of the Ballyhoura, Boggeragh, Derrynasaggart and the Mullaghareirk Mountain ranges add to the range of habitats found in the county. Important habitats in the uplands include blanket bog, heath, glacial lakes, Cork has the 13th highest county peak in Ireland. The three great rivers, the Bandon, the Blackwater and the Lee, and their valleys dominate central Cork, habitats of the valleys and floodplains include woodlands, marshes, fens and species-rich limestone grasslands
2.
Cahir
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Cahir is a town in County Tipperary in Ireland. The town is best known for its castle and the Swiss Cottage and it is in the barony of Iffa and Offa West. For much of the century, Cahir stood at an intersection of two busy national roadways, the Dublin to Cork N8, and the Limerick to Waterford N24. The N8 was realigned in 1991 to run west of the town, traffic from the N24 still left the town badly congested, however, until October 2007 when this road was also realigned to bypass Cahir to the north and east. The same road improvement scheme saw major changes to the N8 corridor, a new motorway, access to Cahir from this motorway is gained at Junctions 10 and 11. Cahir is on the Limerick–Waterford regional railway line, the towns railway station opened on 1 May 1852. There are two trains a day to Tipperary and Limerick Junction and two to Clonmel, Carrick on Suir and Waterford, Bus Éireann runs regular services to Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford through the town. The name Cathair or an Chathair translates as stone ringfort, while the name Cathair Dún Iascaigh means town of the fort of the fishery, in older accounts, it was often spelled Caher. For much of its history, the town has influenced by the Butler family. It was from this family that the first Barons of Cahir were created and it was known for much of its history as being a defence town. Cahir, together with Clonmel, were the centres in South Tipperary of the Quaker population, the principal Quaker family names, largely engaged in milling, were Grubb, Going and Walpole. It was one of the first towns to be linked by stagecoach in the century when Charles Bianconi commenced services between Clonmel, Cahir and Cashel. The building at The Square, where The Galtee Inn is now sited, was the point in the town for Bianconis coaches. Cahir Castle, which is situated on an island in the River Suir, is the towns main tourist attraction. Cahir has a fine Church of Ireland parish church, still in use, designed by John Nash, another major attraction is the Swiss Cottage along with numerous specialty heritage walks. The nearby Galtee Mountains form the largest inland range in Ireland and are home to Glengarra Wood, the Knockmealdown Mountains stand south of the town, while to the southwest lie the Mitchelstown Caves. The salmon weir, on the side of the bridge from the castle, is a popular location to fish. Cahir is a heritage town
3.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
4.
Cave
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A cave is a hollow place in the ground, specifically a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. Caves form naturally by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground, the word cave can also refer to much smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos. A cavern is a type of cave, naturally formed in soluble rock with the ability to grow speleothems. Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves, visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving, potholing, or spelunking. The formation and development of caves is known as speleogenesis, which can occur over the course of millions of years, caves are formed by various geologic processes and can be variable sizes. These may involve a combination of processes, erosion from water, tectonic forces, microorganisms, pressure. Isotopic dating techniques can be applied to cave sediments, in order to determine the timescale when geologic events may have occurred to help form and it is estimated that the maximum depth of a cave cannot be more than 3,000 metres due to the pressure of overlying rocks. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the limit of karst forming processes. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution, solutional caves or karst caves are the most frequently occurring caves and such caves form in rock that is soluble. Most occur in limestone, but they can form in other rocks including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt. Rock is dissolved by acid in groundwater that seeps through bedding planes, faults, joints. Over geological epochs cracks expand to become caves and cave systems, the largest and most abundant solutional caves are located in limestone. Limestone dissolves under the action of rainwater and groundwater charged with H2CO3, the dissolution process produces a distinctive landform known as karst, characterized by sinkholes and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation and these include flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems, the portions of a solutional cave that are below the water table or the local level of the groundwater will be flooded. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico and nearby Carlsbad Cavern are now believed to be examples of type of solutional cave. They were formed by H2S gas rising from below, where reservoirs of oil give off sulfurous fumes and this gas mixes with ground water and forms H2SO4. The acid then dissolves the limestone from below, rather than from above, caves formed at the same time as the surrounding rock are called primary caves
5.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
6.
R639 road (Ireland)
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The R639 road is one of Irelands regional roads. By-passed sections of the old N8 were generally reclassified as R639 as soon a new section of M8 opened, thereby increasing the length of the R639. With the completion of the M8 on 28 May 2010, the R639 now stretches from Durrow, County Laois to Cork, running through counties Laois, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Limerick and Cork. Much of the R639/N8 route was built to connect the midlands to southern Tipperary, the R639/N8 between Fermoy and Cahir via Mitchelstown was built sometime after 1811, while the R639 between Cashel and Urlingford was built around 1739. At the same time, the route from Urlingford to Maryboro was substantially improved, the country now becomes more populous, better improved, and the roads much more agreeable for travelling. From this time until the opening of the various M8 motorway segments beginning with the Fermoy Bypass in 2006. The N8 was improved at various times during the 1970s through to the years of the 21st century. One of the first improvements entailed a realignment of the road so that it bypassed the village of Glanmire for 6 km to the east. This dual carriageway bypass, referred to in documentation as the Glanmire Bypass. When this happened, the former T6/N8 through Glanmire was renumbered, for the first time, the next major incident in the modern history of the R639 occurred in 1991, when a new 4 km single-carriageway bypass to the south-west of Cahir in County Tipperary opened to traffic. This bypass became a part of the N8 for the next 18 years, with the completion of the M8 motorway through South Tipperary in July 2008 however, the 1991 N8 Cahir Bypass was renumbered as part of the N24 - while simultaneously becoming the R639. Other improvement projects carried out on the road during the 1970s, 80s and 90s involved periodic widening and resurfacing, in spring 2001, attention was turned to Watergrasshill in County Cork. In 2004 the N8 through Cashel in County Tipperary was realigned with a dual carriageway bypass to the east of that town. Again, the former N8 through Cashel was redesignated a regional road, in October 2007 the section of N8 between Cashel and Cahir was bypassed by an early-opening segment of the M8 motorway, and became the most recent addition to the R639 route. The road offers a view of the Rock of Cashel. Visible from the R639 too is Hoare Abbey, also close to Cashel, the R639 also passes by Glengarra Wood and Mitchelstown Cave. Roads in Ireland Motorways in Ireland National primary road National secondary road History of roads in Ireland Trunk Roads in Ireland Roads Act 1993 Order 2006 – Department of Transport
7.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
8.
Caving
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Caving — also traditionally known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland — is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems. In contrast, speleology is the study of caves and the cave environment. Cave diving is a distinct, and more hazardous, sub-speciality undertaken by a minority of technically proficient cavers. Sometimes categorized as a sport, it is not commonly considered as such by long-time enthusiasts. Many caving skills overlap with those involved in canyoning, mine, Caving is often undertaken for the enjoyment of the outdoor activity or for physical exercise, as well as original exploration, similar to mountaineering or diving. Physical or biological science is also an important goal for some cavers, virgin cave systems comprise some of the last unexplored regions on Earth and much effort is put into trying to locate, enter and survey them. In well-explored regions, the most accessible caves have already been explored, Caving, in certain areas, has also been utilized as a form of eco and adventure tourism. Tour companies have established a leading and guiding tours into. Depending on the type of cave and the type of tour, in many areas, there are tours led through lava tubes by a guiding service. Some however consider the assistance cavers give each other as a team sport activity. Too much emphasis on the labeling of caving as a sport can narrow the goals of caving as a whole, Caving often puts the needs and welfare of a cave before those of the active participants. Clay Perry, an American caver of the 1940s, wrote about a group of men and this group referred to themselves as spelunkers, a term derived from the Latin spēlunca cave, cavern, den, itself from the Greek σπῆλυγξ spēlynks cave. This is regarded as the first use of the word in the Americas, throughout the 1950s, spelunking was the general term used for exploring caves in US English. It was used freely, without any positive or negative connotations, in the 1960s, the terms spelunking and spelunker began to be considered déclassé among experienced enthusiasts. This sentiment is exemplified by bumper stickers and T-shirts displayed by some cavers, Cavers rescue spelunkers, nevertheless, outside the caving community, spelunking and spelunkers predominately remain neutral terms referring to the practice and practitioners, without any respect to skill level. Potholing refers to the act of exploring potholes, a word originating in the north of England for predominantly vertical caves, the base term caving comes from the Latin cavea or caverna, meaning simply, a cave. He developed his own based on ropes and metallic ladders. Martel visited Kentucky and notably Mammoth Cave National Park in October 1912, robert de Joly, Guy de Lavaur and Norbert Casteret were prominent figures of that time, surveying mostly caves in Southwest France
9.
County Tipperary
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County Tipperary is a county in Ireland. Tipperary County Council is the government authority for the county. It is located in the province of Munster, the county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early thirteenth century, shortly after the Norman invasion of Ireland. The population of the county was 160,441 at the 2016 census. The largest towns are Clonmel, Nenagh and Thurles, Tipperary is the sixth largest of the 32 counties by area and the 12th largest by population. It is the third largest of Munsters 6 counties by size and it is also the largest landlocked county in Ireland. The region is part of the plain of Ireland, but the diverse terrain contains several mountain ranges, the Knockmealdown, the Galtee, the Arra Hills. Most of the county is drained by the River Suir, the part by tributaries of the River Shannon, the eastern part by the River Nore. No part of the county touches the coast, the centre is known as the Golden Vale, a rich pastoral stretch of land in the Suir basin which extends into counties Limerick and Cork. Parishes were delineated after the Down Survey as a subdivision, with multiple townlands per parish. The civil parishes had some use in local taxation and were included on the nineteenth century maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, for poor law purposes, District Electoral Divisions replaced the civil parishes in the mid-nineteenth century. There are 199 civil parishes in the county, townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland, there are 3,159 townlands in the county. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was claimed as a lordship, by 1210, the sheriffdom of Munster shired into the shires of Tipperary and Limerick. In 1328, Tipperary was granted to the Earls of Ormond as a county palatine or liberty, the grant excluded church lands such as the archiepiscopal see of Cashel, which formed the separate county of Cross Tipperary. The county was divided again in 1838. When the Local Government Act 1898 established county councils to replace the grand jury for civil functions and their names were changed from Tipperary North/South Riding to North/South Tipperary by the Local Government Act 2001, which redesignated all administrative counties as simply counties. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 has amalgamated the two counties and restored a single county of Tipperary, following the Local Government Reform Act 2014, Tipperary County Council is the local government authority for the county. The authority is a merger of two separate authorities North Tipperary County Council and South Tipperary County Council which operated up until June 2014
10.
Speleothem
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A speleothem, commonly known as a cave formation, is a secondary mineral deposit formed in a cave. Speleothems typically form in limestone or dolostone solutional caves, the term speleothem as first introduced by Moore, is derived from the Greek words spēlaion cave + théma deposit. The definition of speleothem in most publications, specifically excludes secondary mineral deposits in mines, tunnels, the cave environment has influenced the minerals deposition. More than 250 cave mineral deposits exist, the vast majority of speleothems are calcareous, composed of calcium carbonate in the form of calcite or aragonite, or calcium sulfate in the form of gypsum. Calcareous speleothems form via carbonate dissolution reactions, calthemites which occur on concrete structures, are created by completely different chemistry to speleothems. Speleothems take various forms, depending on whether the water drips, seeps, condenses, flows, many speleothems are named for their resemblance to man-made or natural objects. Speleogens are formations within caves that are created by the removal of bedrock, although sometimes similar in appearance to speleothems in caves formed by dissolution, these are formed by the cooling of residual lava within the lava tube. Speleothems formed from salt, sulfur and other minerals are also known, most cave chemistry revolves around calcium carbonate, the primary mineral in limestone and dolomite. It is a slightly soluble mineral whose solubility increases with the introduction of carbon dioxide and it is paradoxical in that its solubility decreases as the temperature increases, unlike the vast majority of dissolved solids. This decrease is due to interactions with the carbon dioxide, whose solubility is diminished by elevated temperatures, as the dioxide is released. Most other solution caves that are not composed of limestone or dolostone are composed of gypsum, samples can be taken from speleothems to be used like ice cores as a proxy record of past climate changes. A particular strength of speleothems in this regard is their ability to be accurately dated over much of the late Quaternary period using the uranium-thorium dating technique. These can provide clues to past precipitation, temperature, and vegetation changes over the last ~500,000 years, moreover, the radiation centers must be stable on geologic time, i. e. to have a very large lifetime, to make dating possible. Many other artifacts, such as, e. g. surface defects induced by the grinding of the sample can also preclude a correct dating, only a few percents of the samples tested are in fact suitable for dating. This makes the often disappointing for the experimentalists. ESR dating can be tricky and must be applied with discernment and it can never be used alone, One date only is No date, or in other words, multiple lines of evidence and multiple lines of reasoning are necessary in absolute dating. However, good samples might be if all the selection criteria are met. The occurrence of calthemites is often associated with degradation, but could also be linked to leaching of lime
11.
Mitchelstown
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Mitchelstown is a town in County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 3300. Mitchelstown is situated in the valley to the south of the Galty Mountains,12 km south-west of the Mitchelstown Caves,28 km from Cahir,50 km from Cork and 59 km from Limerick. The River Gradoge runs by the town into the River Funshion, the town is best known as a centre for cheese production. The name of Mitchelstown originates from the Anglo-Norman family called St Michel who founded a settlement close to the site of the present town in the 13th century, the village was originally known as Villa Michel. The modern name comes from the Anglicized version of the later Gaelic derived Ballyvisteala or Ballymistealy, the town evolved as a hodgepodge of cabins and lane-ways beside Mitchelstown Castle. Evidence would suggest that the castle was built first and that the village and town came later, in the 1770s, the medieval town was replaced by the present town which is situated east and south of King Square. It was laid out in a pattern of two main streets intersected by a number of smaller streets. Mitchelstown is today regarded as one of the best planned Georgian towns in Ireland, some of its streets are named after members of the King family, namely Robert, George, Edward, James, Thomas and King. The other streets of the Georgian town are Church Street, Baldwin Street, Alley Lane, Chapel Hill, Convent Hill, King Square, New Square and Mulberry Lane. The layout established by the second and third Earls of Kingston between 1776 and 1830 utilised the natural features of the site to give views of the Galtee Mountains. Mitchelstown Castle was rebuilt between 1823 and 1825 by the third Earl of Kingston and his new house was the biggest in Ireland. During the Irish Civil War in 1922 the castle was occupied by the Republican Army, the ashlar limestone of the house stood as a ruin until about 1930 when it was bought by the monks of Mount Melleray Abbey who used it to build their new monastery in county Waterford. On 9 September 1887, a protest was held in New Square outside the premises in which Mandeville, the police shot into the crowd, killing two and injuring dozens of others, one of the injured died soon after. The dead men were John Shinnick of Fermoy, John Casey of Kilbehenny and Michael Lonergan of Galbally, the incident generated considerable international attention and became known as the Mitchelstown Massacre. The phrase Remember Mitchelstown (first coined by William Gladstone, became a cry for Irishmen at home. The memorial to Mandeville that stands in Market Square was unveiled in 1906 by William OBrien MP and it also commemorates the names of the three men killed in 1887. Up to 1989, Mitchelstown was the headquarters for Mitchelstown Co-Operative Agricultural Society Ltd, between 1919 and 1989, Mitchelstown Co-op Creameries became the largest and most important dairy processing business in the island of Ireland. In the 1930s the Co-Op promoted the introduction of intensive pig production in the Mitchelstown area as another source of farm income, as a result, several of Irelands largest industrial pig farms are based in the Mitchelstown area to this day
