Wild Loop Head - Part 1

Welcome to the Atlantic Edge

When you are standing on the western tip of the Loop Head Peninsula you have reached the Atlantic Edge. The land ends abruptly and falls as a sheer rock face into the Atlantic Ocean some 30 meters below. Waves rolling in from the open Atlantic smash into this rock face, making the ground beneath your feet shake and sending clouds of spray high above the cliff edge, drenching everything in the vicinity in fine droplets of seawater and leaving a salty taste on your lips. This is the meeting between land and sea at its most dramatic.

The headland of Loop Head, crowned by a lighthouse since 1670, is one of the westernmost points in Ireland. It is a narrow jut of sandstone, shaped by wind and sea, exposed, bleak and surrounded by water. The expanse of the Atlantic Ocean stretches to the western and northern horizon where it merges with the wide arch of the sky, playing tricks on the eye and leaving you wondering where the sea ends and the sky begins. 

Only a glimpse south reveals a break in the monotony of ocean and firmament. Across the water, known as the Mouth of the Shannon, the characteristic shape of the Brandon Range on the Dingle Peninsula rises dominantly from the sea on clear days. But when low pressure systems push in low clouds or when settled weather sends in sea fog from the open water, even this reminder of firm land vanishes. When clouds and fog descend on the headland the world disappears and all that is left are the sounds of the Atlantic Edge. The familiar cry of gulls, the piercing call of the chough, the blow of a dolphin, and above all the voices of the Atlantic Ocean and the whispers of the wind.

Healy's Island

The Loop Head peninsula is a narrow stretch of land uniquely located between the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean and the estuary of Ireland's longest river, the Shannon. The peninsula’s only connection to the mainland is a narrow isthmus that runs between the seaside town of Kilkee and the upper end of Poulnasherry Bay at Blackweir Bridge. The result is not only a visually diverse and mesmerising place but also one that combines a wide diversity of natural habitats and wildlife. The latter is particularly surprising looking at the history of the area. The Shannon Estuary, which is locally known as the river, stretches way beyond the peninsula up to the city of Limerick and has been one of the main shipping lanes into Ireland for centuries. At any given day two, three or more large cargo ships can be seen on the move or anchored in the estuary. Past those sail small fishing vessels and, particularly during the summer months, a fleet of leisure crafts including jet skis, sailing boats, yachts and tourist crafts. The shores of the estuary are dotted with towns and villages and major industry. There are the deep water shipping port at Foynes and many smaller fishing harbours and marinas; two power stations, one at Tarbert and one at Moneypoint, the latter of which is currently going through a transformation from burning fossil fuels to becoming a hub for offshore wind; a controversial aluminum factory at Aughinish; ferry terminals in Killimer and Tarbert; and an international airport. 

Moneypoint Power Station

Despite this heavy anthropogenic footprint the Shannon Estuary is rich in biodiversity and a haven for wildlife. The landscape of the estuary showcases a sequence of sheltered bays, inlets and lagoons backed by fields and hedgerows which are the perfect home for wintering as well as resident wildfowl, waders and other birds. Otters are not an uncommon sight on the mudflats and saltmarshes and feral goats roam the cliffs. The waters of the estuary are home to Ireland's only resident group of bottlenose dolphins, locally known as the Shannon Dolphins. Over 100 individual animals are living in the estuary at any given time, taking advantage of the strong tidal currents that bring in rich food supplies. Seals also take advantage of the well stocked larder and are a regular sight sunbathing on the rocks at the Mouth of the Shannon, and gannets that breed further south also visit the rich waters around Loop Head to fish.

​While the Shannon Estuary presents as a gentle landscape, the rugged north of the peninsula is a completely different affair. The rocky shores and cliffs that dominate here are exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean and have been sculpted into a twisting and turning coastline featuring rock arches, sea stacks and rocky islands. In summer the cliffs host colonies of kittiwakes, fulmars, guillemots and razorbills that join resident birds like chough, raven and rock dove. A few relatively sheltered inlets feature colourful rock pools that host a wide variety of plants and animals like sea anemones, starfish, sponges, shells and crabs. In spring and summer the cliff tops explode in a myriad of colours when the wildflowers of Loop Head burst into bloom while basking sharks slowly cruise in the waters of the Atlantic below. In autumn the basking sharks are joined by humpback and fin whales and Atlantic bluefin tuna, giving a glimpse of the richness of the waters off Loop Head.

​The flat interior of the peninsula separating the river and the sea is on average not more than three kilometers wide and has been shaped by many centuries of farming. It is a patchwork of small fields and pastures separated by hedgerows and overgrown stone walls known as sod hedges. These often underrated but important habitats support a wide variety of shrubs, wildflowers, ferns, insects, birds and other animals like the Irish hare, the fox and Ireland's only native reptile, the viviparous lizard.

​Where the peninsula is connected to the mainland, between Kilkee at the Atlantic coast and Poulnasherry Bay at the Shannon Estuary, sits an area of peatland. It consists mainly of Atlantic blanket bog but also features a small area of raised bog, one of the most westerly in Ireland. While the area has been used for domestic peat harvesting for centuries, pockets of intact bog have survived to this day and feature carnivorous plants like sundews, butterworts and bladderworts, orchids, lichens and mosses, heather species and grasses above which the skylark sings its song and the cuckoo is calling for a mate.

Looking east from Loop Head along the northern coastline

A Short Natural History of the Loop Head Peninsula

The origins of Loop Head lie in a distant past, some 320 million years ago in the Upper Carboniferous Period. Back then the area that would become the Loop Head Peninsula was located near the equator just off a vast river delta on the ancient continent of Pangea. The river deposited large amounts of sand, clay and silt into the ocean and over time these deposits hardened, layer upon layer, into the shale and sandstone that make up the bedrock, cliffs and rocky shores of Loop Head today.

The individual rock layers, known as turbidite sheets, are clearly visible all around the peninsula from Kilkee to Loop Head. Where the top of individual layers is exposed and hasn’t been smoothed by wave action, the ripples and grooves that had been created by sea currents millions of years ago are still visible on the rock surface today. The mud layers were however not always stable. In places the muddy sediment became dislodged and slumped, creating twisting and bending rock sheets and sand volcanoes in the process. Sand volcanoes formed where water trapped under the mud sheets pushed its way under high pressure through the mud to the surface. The result we can see today are structures resembling miniature volcanoes sitting on top of rock layers. Kilbaha Bay, Ross and the Kilkee Cliffs are the best places to explore these ancient seabeds and its geological features.

While the mud layers hardened into rock, Ireland slowly moved northwards, was lifted above sea level and eventually reached its current position on the globe. The latest event that shaped Loop Head into the place we see today was the ice age, a series of glaciations interspersed with warmer periods that affected the northern hemisphere from around 100.000 years ago. It is thought that the early glaciations produced a considerable amount of sediment that slowly built up the soils of the Loop Head Peninsula and neighbouring areas. The latest glaciation however, which was at its height around 24.000 years ago, influenced the peninsula in a different way. At the time the large ice dome that stretched from Galway Bay over the Burren and into County Tipperary stopped at a line running roughly from Quilty to Kilrush and from there across the Shannon Estuary to Tarbert and into County Kerry, leaving the Loop Head Peninsula ice free. Once the ice started to retreat it left kames, small hills made of glacial deposit and limestone till, which would become the parent material for the soils of Mid and East Clare. The Loop Head Peninsula did not receive any of those glacial additives and as a consequence its soil is rather shallow and features a high clay content. The result is a heavy and waterlogged soil known as gley that is dominant in most places on the peninsula. 

Some 10.000 years ago when temperatures started to rise and permanent ice and frost dissipated, the Loop Head Peninsula, at the time likely a tundra-like landscape, developed birch and pine forests that in time covered large parts of the peninsula from Carrigaholt to Kilrush and further along the estuary. In some places the remains of these ancient woodlands can still be seen. A place known as the Drowned Forest near Carrigaholt features a stretch of peat coast. Embedded in the peat are numerous tree trunks, mostly pine, and branches of birch trees, many of which still feature the trees’ characteristic white bark. Further up the estuary near the small village of Knock and on beaches around Doonbeg similar remains are being uncovered by the tides from time to time.

The Drowned Forest

The forests started to disappear around 4000 years ago. The cause for this was the transition of early men from hunter-gatherer to farmer and a change from a continental climate regime to the wet and mild climate of today. The latter triggered widespread peat formation which over time engulfed the woodlands while men began to clear larger areas of forest to create farmland for crops and livestock. Latest research suggests however that the removal of trees was already a widespread practice among hunter-gatherers to improve their hunting success and that the decimation of forests had been underway long before farming became part of the picture.

The landscape of Loop Head changed. Human settlements appeared in the shape of ringforts which are still visible in many places all over the peninsula today. Woodlands disappeared bit by bit and were replaced by fields, pastures and peatlands, the latter of which were over time drained and also turned into farmland. A few stands of birch or pine might have remained for a bit longer, likely along the streams and rivers, but with a growing population the transformation to the treeless and open landscape of today was unstoppable.

Little is known about the animals that roamed the Loop Head Peninsula back then but it is likely that the Irish hare and the fox were already around in these times and legends hint at sea monsters that resemble bottlenose dolphins and whales. Red deer and wild boar are likely to have walked the forests and shores of the peninsula before their habitats were eliminated or they were hunted to extinction. The same goes for predators like the wolf and lynx.

While the growing human population transformed the land, the relentless Atlantic Ocean was working away at the coast, carving inlets, sea arches, sea caves, sea stacks and small islands out of the rock, dismantling the land like it had done since long before the arrival of men. Both processes are still ongoing, men keep shaping the landscape and the sea keeps sculpting the coast. 

Today the Loop Head Peninsula wears two distinct faces. The seemingly untouched and wild coastline on the one side and the man-made farming landscape of the peninsula’s interior on the other. But as farming practices become ever more industrial and the coastline is facing increasing pressure from leisure seeking homo sapiens, a growing need to let in more industry from fish to wind farms, and a rise in pollution, first and foremost plastic, the future of the peninsula is very much uncertain.

Read more in Wild Loop Head - Part 2

Text & Images by Carsten Krieger