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| 10 Apr 2008 03:42:59 pm |
 Water & Place |
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Cape Grim, Tasmania
You wouldn't want to live there, but the rain water is worth bottling. At Cape Grim it rains on average 187 days a year and it's cold. Even native animals don't like it, so there are very few of them!
Iskilde, Denmark”Iskilde” means ”cold spring” in Danish. The artesian spring was discovered in the Mossø Conservation area in a remote part of the Danish lake highlands in 2001 by a retired insurance broker and his wife.
Glaciares del Peteroa, Chile
At the end of the world the Andes Mountain give birth to the thousand-year-old glaciers from the volcanic Planchón-Peteroa complex.
Viti, Fiji
Viti Levu (Viti's source) is 1,500 miles away from Australia and is located at the very edge of a primitive rain forest, far from polluted air, acid rain, and impure soil.
Spa, Belgium
Spa Natural Spring Water is imported from the town of Spa Belgium located in the Ardennes Mountains, one of Europe’s most renowned conservation areas.
Finé, Japan
Procured from its pristine aquifer located deep beneath the Fuji volcanic belt, Finé has a distinctive yet subtle flavor and a soft mouth feel. Due to its ancient origins, Finé water bottled today will never come in contact with man-made pollutants, that can easily affect the mineral waters of much shallower springs.
Promotional material & images from (and many, many more waters & places) at [url]www.finewaters.com
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Category : culture
| By : Gareth |  Comments [43] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 07 Apr 2008 11:05:06 pm |
| Sunday Times, March 23rd |
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Category : climate
| By : Elaine | Comments [52] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 07 Apr 2008 12:04:22 pm |
| Sunpath: Carrick on Shannon |
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www.gaisma.com offers sunrise, sunset, dawn and dusk times around the world.
Sun path diagram (also known as "solar path diagram", "sun chart" or "solar chart") is a visualization of the sun's path through the sky. This path is formed by plotting azimuth (left-right) and elevation (up-down) angles of the sun in a given day to a diagram.
To find out the position azimuth = 60, elevation = 30, for example, imagine standing at the center of the diagram heading to the true north. To find the azimuth angle 60, you must turn 60 degrees to the right. Now the altitude angle 30 can be located by raising your head 30 degrees from the horizon.
SUNPATH DIAGRAM FOR CARRICK ON SHANNON
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Category : climate
| By : Elaine | Comments [32] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 07 Apr 2008 11:32:43 am |
| Employment providers |
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The main employers in Carrick-on-Shannon include MBNA, Masonite and Leitrim County Council.
MBNA is the largest employer in Carrick-on-Shannon. MBNA Europe Bank Ltd. opened its Carrick-on-Shannon regional office in July 2001 and now employs more than 900 people.Masonite employs 320 and Leitrim County Council employs 400.
Industrial winner - Masonite Ireland Ltd (awarded by SEI, Sustainable Energy Ireland)
'Masonite is a large MDF Door Skin Manufacturing plant located near Carrick-on-Shannon in Co. Leitrim. Established in 1997 Masonite employs 300 staff and is a significant electricity user.
A 44.5 Mega Watt wood-fuelled furnace utilises 5 large electrical air fans to sustain the combustion processes and to cool the exhaust gases. Outlet vane dampers previously controlled the air volume flows from these fans. Following extensive investigation the fans were converted to variable speed drive control to achieve maximum electrical efficiency and allow complete system flexibility.
Electrical efficiency has increased by over 85% leading to annual electrical savings in excess of 650,000 kilo watt hours and primary energy carbon dioxide savings of 380 tonnes per annum, while at the same time providing much greater system control. |
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Category : Industrial
| By : Elaine | Comments [48] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 07 Apr 2008 11:08:36 am |
| Creevelea |
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Creevelea Iron Works as it stands today; A genuine industrial ruin.
Also, I would like to apologise for not responding to any of the insightful comments left in reference to my posts. In fact, I hadn't even realised that they were there...Completely overlooked!
Will get around to some responses a.s.a.p
Elaine |
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Category : archeology
| By : Elaine | Comments [69] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 01 Apr 2008 01:51:23 pm |
| 3 Disparate Folk Traditions |
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I am looking at these obscure and often peculiar (to the modern eye) folk festivals, which are borne out of ritual, tradition, and often have their origins in superstition. I am interested with the performative aspects, and the enactment/reenactment of these festivals, some of which have been carried on down through the centuries, and which offer their protagonists and audience a connection to past events, belief systems or recreate a powerful sense of continuity between the past and the present.
Every November 5th (Guy Fawkes' Night), in the main square of Ottery St Mary, thousands of people from across the county and beyond congregate to watch barrels full of burning tar being rolled up and down the streets. This is an extremely ancient tradition, possibly older than that of the unhappy Guy Fawkes himself. Fire festivals around the time of Halloween are deeply rooted in British folklore and have been connected with the ritual burning of witches. It is a great honour to be allowed to take part in the barrel rolling and this has continued in some local families for generation after generation.
Image from Jeremy Deller's FOLK Archive (see www.mini-host.org/folkarchive)
The Onbashira Festival has been held every six years for 1,200 years when the shrine's buildings of Suwa Taisha are rebuilt at Suwa City, in the Chubu region of Japan. It last took place in 2004 and will next take place in 2010. The climax of the festival consists of the Kiotoshi (young men ride the logs as they slide down a steep slope) and the Tate Onbashira (later as they are raised as pillars for the new rebuilt shrine). The Onbashira Festival is also known as one of Japan's big three fanciful festivals.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgO9ByVK2aw for an amusing video action of this.
Every year in the town of Killorglin, Co. Kerry, a feral goat is captured, washed and elevated to the stature of King Puck. Puck is then elevated on 60ft scaffolding within the town where he stays and holds court for 3 full days, over seeing the festivities in the town below.
The most widely mentioned story relating to the origin of King Puck, associates him with Oliver Cromwell who landed in Ireland in 1649 to re-conquer the country on behalf of the English Parliament. It is related that while the "Roundheads" were pillaging the countryside around Shanara and Kilgobnet at the foot of the McGillycuddy Reeks, they routed a herd of goats grazing on the upland. The animals took flight before the raiders, and the he-goat or "Puck" broke away on his own and lost contact with the herd. While the others headed for the mountains he went towards Cill Orglain (Killorglin). His arrival there in a state of semi exhaustion alerted the inhabitants of the approaching danger and they immediately set about protecting themselves and their stock.
It is said that in recognition of the service rendered by the goat, the people decided to institute a special festival in his honour and this festival has been held ever since.
See http://www.puckfair.ie/. The fair is also broadcast live on webcam every year. |
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Category : culture
| By : Gareth | Comments [52] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 31 Mar 2008 09:47:25 am |
| Idiosyncratic Seaside Architecture |
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Bundoran, photos by Sarah Browne, last weekend of March, 2008 |
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Category : tourism
| By : Sarah | Comments [66] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 31 Mar 2008 09:05:11 am |
| Memoirs |
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Category : General
| By : anna | Comments [55] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 31 Mar 2008 08:58:32 am |
| Geological Survey Mapping in Ireland. |
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Geological Survey Mapping in Ireland.
The Ordinance Survey’s coverage of Ireland on the scale of one inch to one statute mile ( 1:63,360) was planned during the Napoleonic wars to form part of a single military map of the United Kingdom. By the time the Irish branch was set up in 1824, the priority was no longer military and county maps were drawn up at the larger scale of six inches to a mile. Only when the last of these large scale maps were completed in 1846 did work commence on the drawing and engraving of the of the Irish one inch map.
In terms of Geological mapping, Ireland nurtured some notable pioneers of geological cartography and produced an official geological survey some ten years before the establishment of a similar survey in England. It was to Ireland that British geologists came to learn the art of six -inch field mapping. The maps of Leitrim gathered here courtesy of the Geological Survey of Ireland ( copyright free) are both the six inch field maps drawn by geological teams during the 1840’s /50’s and the later one inch maps published in 1878.
The one inch maps depict hill shading as closely spaced fine lines known as hachures, the engraving of hachures was a slow and difficult process, in later editions the hachures were lightened by printing them in brown and in the black and white versions of the early twentieth century were replaced by contour lines.
Of the six inch maps the geological field notes are drawn or painted on watercolour directly onto ordinance survey maps and include direct observations; Leitrim map 12.3; near Ballaghnabehy Lough, ‘ a very fine quarry of flaggy white quartzite grits and sandstone flags can be raised here to almost any size. They are much used in Sligo and Enniskillen for paving streets. It is a much softer rock than the same grits on the Glenfarne Mountain, the latter being so hard as to turn the workmans tools’. Another exampleLeitrim 12.4 Ardvarney. ‘ massive white quartzite grits and fine conglomerates, ice moulded? Direction of movement running E to W.’
Memoirs to the 1’’ maps.
To accompany the 1878 1’’ geological maps of Ireland, the Geological Survey of Ireland produced explanatory memoirs to give a detailed breakdown of the topography of the areas covered on each map sheet. For example the principal places described in the memoir for sheets 66 & 67 are Ballymote in Co Sligo, Ballyfarnon in Roscommon, Drumshambo, Ballinamore and a small part of Carrick on Shannon in Leitrim.
In the forward by the Director General of the survey, Andrew C Ramsey notes that…
‘there is exhibited a very interesting and complete series of all the Carboniferous Strata of Ireland, from the sandstones that underlie the Lower Sandstone, up to an including the Lower Coal-measures. The Old Red Sandstone also forms a long tract of country; and, indeed, on either side of Lough Allen, and near its southern end, the Geologist may examine all the formations of the district from the Lower Silurian up to the outlier of the Coal measures that crown Slieve-an-Ierin, 1,922 feet above the sea. It is a rare thing in most countries to find so much comprised in so small a space.’
There follows 37 pages of minute detail of the findings of the survey teams. The contents cover: physical geography, geological formations, palaeontological notes ( including a description of what fossils were discovered in which townland and where, eg:
Liscreaghan, at railway cutting, three quarters of a mile west of Woodbrook, three miles and a quarter west of Carrick on Shannon: Lower Limestone. Actinozoa;Corals, Lithodendron affinis; Junceum; Mullusca; Polyzoa, Feirestella membranacea; Brachiopoda; Terebratula hastate.)
Accounts of mines, minerals and principal faults, this section includes accounts of landowners and their various attempts to sink shafts and capitalize on the coal seams on their land sometimes the author permits himself the odd wry remark:
‘ I may here remark that Hugh O’Berine, esq., of Jamestown House spent several thousand pounds in sinking a shaft in seach of coals about half a mile east of Lough Allen, through the base of the Yoredale beds into the upper limestones. It seems that he acted on the advice of some practical men, which only shows how capital can be wasted when its outlay is not directed by a knowledge of the simplest principles of geology’. |
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Category : General
| By : anna | Comments [53] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 31 Mar 2008 08:51:12 am |
| Maps |
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Category : General
| By : anna | Comments [57] | Trackbacks [0] |
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