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Introduction
• Western edge of Europe• A small island: little larger than West Virginia• Temperate climate washed by the Gulf stream
– On the same latitude as Moscow & the Aleutians
• Strategic location between North America & Europe (US military stopover)
• Proximity to Great Britain
Geological Origins
• Pangaea split apart 200 mya– Present-day Ireland was connected to
Newfoundland
• Animation of Ice Age Progress of Ice Age
• During Ice Age, there was a land bridge to the British Isles
• With end of Ice Age ~11,500 ya– Sea level rose– Land bounced back from the heavy weight of
the glaciers
• The British Isles are detached from the European continent: – first Ireland then Great Britain
• Landscape would evolve from shrubs to grasslands to forests to farm land
The Irish Giant Deer
• Main features shaped by volcanic activity, glaciers and rain– Erosion removed layer that elsewhere
contains coal, iron ore– Rain also crucial to the formation of bogs– With agriculture, reinforcement of spread of
bogs, the Burren
Bogs & peat
The Burren
• The bowl shape of Ireland
• Main geographic divisions are between Ulster in the north and between the east and west
• The north and west are rainier, the south and east drier (the Pale)
• Climate has encouraged cattle raising historically
The Four Provinces
Cultural factors
• Culturally tied into the ‘Atlantic ends’– Human settlement out of Scotland or Denmark or
Spain
• Later the proximity to Scotland would profoundly influence the colonization of Ulster
• The mix of uplands and lowlands in the northeast would mean that the Catholic population would remained mixed with the Protestant
Environmental concerns
• Growth of urban populations– Eutrophication
• Pollution from agricultural runoff into streams, rivers
– Deforestation– Disappearance of picturesque small farms
Impact of Global Warming
• May disrupt the action of the Gulf stream
• May extend growing season, dry up peatlands
Main Sources
• CIA World Factbook
• Michael Viney, Ireland: A Smithsonian Natural History
• The Course of Irish History, Moody & Martin
