Blurs

The Cave Art That Could Rewrite Ireland’s Human History Ancient markings hidden inside eight Irish caves could push the story of human settlement on the island back thousands of years — and point towards a lost Ice Age landscape connecting Ireland with Wales. For thousands of years, some of Ireland's most remarkable evidence of the human past may have been sitting in darkness. Researchers working in south-west Ireland have identified rock art in eight caves that they believe dates back at least 15,000 years — potentially much earlier than the previously accepted evidence for humans on the island. If the interpretation and dating withstand further investigation, it could move the earliest known human presence in Ireland back by around 5,000 years. But the discovery raises an even bigger question: How did those people get there? A very different Ireland The Ireland these people would have known was nothing like the island we recognise today. They lived towards the end of the last Ice...

The Burren is one of Ireland's strangest landscapes. Its vast fields of exposed limestone, broken into terraces, cracks and deep fissures, can look almost alien. Yet beneath this apparently barren stone landscape lies evidence of a very different world — one that existed hundreds of millions of years before humans, dinosaurs or even the first true reptiles appeared. Recently discovered fossils from the Burren and Donegal have revealed the remains of ancient sharks that lived approximately 330 million years ago. They weren't the sleek predators familiar from modern oceans. Some possessed strange, crushing teeth adapted to feeding on hard-shelled prey. Their fossilised remains provide a glimpse into an ancient marine ecosystem that existed long before the Atlantic Ocean took its modern form. Ireland Before Ireland Around 330 million years ago, Ireland looked nothing like it does today. The land that would eventually become Ireland was positioned much closer to the equator. Much o...

Deep in the countryside of County Donegal lies a strange geological formation known as the Pullans or Pullauns. Beneath the wooded landscape of Brownhall Demesne, near Ballintra, a river has carved its way through limestone, creating a curious network of ravines, caves and partially collapsed passages. It is a remarkable natural feature in its own right. But local folklore has given one part of the underground system a much darker name: the Piper's Hole. According to an old Donegal tradition, a piper entered the caves, his music echoing through the underground passages. He never came back out. And some versions of the story claim that his pipes can still be heard. A Cave Beneath Brownhall The Pullans are not simply a product of imagination. Geological Survey Ireland identifies the site as a County Geological Site in Brownhall Demesne, near Ballintra. It is an unusual near-surface river cave developed in Carboniferous limestone, containing sections that are open to the surface, part...

For centuries, sailors searched for it. Cartographers drew it. Explorers sailed into the Atlantic hoping to find it.  Yet despite appearing on maps for more than 500 years, Hy-Brasil may never have existed at all. Part Irish legend, part cartographic mystery, Hy-Brasil remains one of the most fascinating phantom islands in history—a lost land said to emerge from the mist only once every seven years before vanishing once more into the Atlantic Ocean. In folklore, Hy-Brasil is often described as: - A paradise or “blessed island” - A land inhabited by supernatural beings, sages, or an advanced civilisation - A place associated with mystery, magic, and hidden knowledge The Island Hidden by Fog According to Irish folklore, Hy-Brasil lay somewhere west of Ireland, concealed by a perpetual veil of fog. The island was said to become visible only once every seven years, and even then it remained frustratingly out of reach. Those who attempted to approach it found it disappearing into the mi...