I apologize fot fot the upside down image above. I will go in to fix it when I have access to an Internet connection on my laptop.

The above image was taken while hiking in the cliffs of Howthe, a short distance from Dublin. Howthe is a beautiful place at all times, but it is particularly beautiful while covered over in fog. Though you can’t see the famed Eye of Ireland, the way that the fog moves through the wind on the cliffs make it seem alive, as if hounds of mist or ghosts are playing around you, learning at you out of the palpable nowhere from the corner points of your vision.

I have experienced these fog hounds of Ireland elsewhere on the Island, as well. At the cliffs of Moore, where the wind blows hard enough to make UFOs out of stones, pulling them over the precipice they rest on and then sending them back, hurtling upward to crash against the cliff face above your head, the hounds are most active. They twist, and turn, and bite at each other’s heels, and their mournful cries to each other and the hidden moon blow so harshly into your ears it feels as if the wind will grate your brain.

Fog in mountains or cliffs has always fascinated me. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in western Virginia and fog would curl down into the crevices of those blue mountains like a slumbering cat in a bowl. The fog in Ireland is different. It’s alive, like the magic that’s seeped out of the fog in the ancient Appalachias is still vital in the glacial formations of Eire. It’s beautiful and adds a fluidity to the static rocks of Ireland, allowing place to change while staying the same and allowing the land to live like an animal rather than lie like base mineral.