Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. I thought we might start with a ramble in the Burren in Ireland.
About 6,000 years ago, some of the Irish people were making the transition from a hunting and gathering way of life into an agricultural way of life which included both farming and raising livestock. In County Clare they began to clear the woodlands for their fields and pastures. Over time, however, the thin topsoil eroded and exposed the limestone bones that lay just underneath. The result is an area known today as the Burren.
The Irish term boireann refers to “rocky country,” is an apt description of the Burren which today is composed of acres of limestone karst pavements. Known as “clints,” the limestone karst lies like huge scattered bones across the hills. Between the seams of the rocks are narrow fissures known as “grikes.” The grikes support wildflowers. While the soil of the Burren is scarce today, about 75% of Ireland’s native wildflowers are found here. These include a number of different orchids, the creamy-white burnet rose, the little starry flowers of mossy saxifrage, and the magenta-colored bloody cranesbill.
The rock walls running up the side of the rocky hill shown in the photographs above are not really functional. The British, in their colonial arrogance and ethnocentrism, had the starving Irish build them as a make-work project during the 19th century.
a href="http://s821.photobucket.com/albums/zz139/Ojibwa/Ireland/Burren/?action=view¤t=DSCN2104.jpg" target="_blank">
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