Friday 24 April 2015

Irish Blue Limestone



A Geological Map of Ireland

Looking at a geological map of Ireland, the Carboniferous limestone – coloured pale blue – is the most common rock and, in places like The Burren, forms spectacular landscapes.

Although much of this rock is buried under glacial till, it has also contributed significantly to Ireland’s economy in other ways: mined for its associated lead–zinc deposits and quarried for hard rock aggregates and good quality building stone.


Holdenrath Quarry

In Amsterdam, it has been used for large paving and urban landscaping projects and is considered to be more durable than similar limestones that have traditionally been imported from Belgium.

Several companies produce this Irish Blue Limestone and, on the last leg of my tour of southern Ireland, with only County Geological Sites in Co. Wicklow to survey before returning to Dublin, I arranged to visit a major supplier - to look at their production facilities and take away a few samples of stone that have finishes made by sophisticated machine tools.


A bridge saw

As the resident building stone specialist at the Geological Survey of Ireland, I was very interested to see the differences in production between Ireland and the UK, where this limestone has been mainly used either for walling and vernacular architecture or polished – to show off the beautiful corals, crinoids, brachiopods and bivalves


Samples of Irish Blue Limestone