Co. Cork - Skibbereen

The quarry face at Forenaught Quarry

Moving on from Valentia Island to Kenmare, where I stayed the night, I drove through the rest of Co. Kerry, seeing more fantastic rocky scenery with spectacular views of the coastline – stopping only to buy two fine Arran jumpers  at Glengarrick, before I arrived at Skibbereen, in Co. Cork.

Walling stone

The Old Red Sandstone in southern Ireland was compressed into large, broad folds during the mountain building episode of the Hercynian and it is these structures that make the landscape of Co. Kerry, and the western part of Co. Cork, so attractive.

With great stresses and strains imposed upon these rocks, they have all developed a metamorphic fabric, to varying degrees.  At Valentia, the slate is of fine quality, and was once exported all over the world, but much of it is of much lower quality – as I discovered at Forenaught Quarry. Here, the stone is pulled from the quarry face using excavators and is only suitable for basic walling or crazy paving that is used locally.

St. Patrick's cathedral

Although this wasn’t on the list for the audit of County Geological Sites, having already driven such a long way to get to Valentia, I wanted to look at some of the building stones that give character to a place – walls and cathedrals - for my work with the Dublin Stone Show.

A brief survey of the principal features of the exposed quarry faces, and a quick look at the packaged products, suggested that this material would only be used for simple structures but, in the town of Skibbereen, there are other better quality building stones. They can be formed into large squared blocks, to reinforce the structure, and give the architecture in the town a distinctive regional character, which I had not yet seen in Ireland.

A Cork Red marble piscina at St. Patrick's cathedral