Country Diary: The Burren, Ireland

Visitors often exclaim and indeed tourist brochures confirm their first impression of our Burren: "It is a lunar landscape." Well, I've never been on the moon but, if I remember accurately, the first visitors to it were in a state of unceasing levitation. Here we try to keep our feet on the ground, their natural field of operation. The equation of the Burren to a moon-like surface is false, a spur-of-the-moment reaction to a strange and very beautiful landscape. Its hills may seem bleak, unclothed as they are by acres of trees, uncapped by ice, unswathed by snow. They are, as readers know, of limestone, their average height being about 300 metres. They do not overawe, being within our human scale. Morning light strokes their limestone and it gleams with life, softly luminous until dawn passes and the hill flanks reveal patches of iridescent green, little scraps of grass, small hazel or holly trees. As the sun invests the hills, soft folds can be seen, folds of green, of gentle grey. Clouds cast dark and light shadows, which move from hill to hill. Ribs of stone rise from the valley - a Burren glory, its stonewalls.

From early spring to early autumn, the western sun touches the hillsides, changing the colour to deep, then pale rose and finally, as it slips behind the opposite hill, to lavender. It is the hour of stillness, of profound reflection. At other times, the encircling mountains are of the purest gold but without glitter, just glowing and reflecting a gentle light. In late autumn and winter the hills vary in colour, sometimes shining black like wet tar, sometimes pewter and, in the rain, with silver streams crossing from summit to valley, hills ancient as the sun, the moon.