For the moment, my flights are pretty much confined to the island of Ireland (due to speed and aircraft availability). So I'm making the most of it and getting to see a different side of flying than I'm used to (lower and slower).

Monday 1 April was a misty and showery day, but due to better visibility from the Savannah than the Arrow that I used to fly, I'm more comfortable flying lower, and due to the slower speed, showers are easier to navigate (things happen much slower).

So I made the most of it today with a local tour of some of the sights. This was a good chance to make the most of a short local flight, using EasyVFR's Scenic Sights Feature to find some interesting local landmarks.

I departed and returned to EICL Clonbulogue and these sights are all the the south of there.

Emo Court
Emo Court Wikipedia
Designed by the famous Irish architect James Gandon. Construction started in 1790 and finished in 1860. Builders eh?

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Rock of Dunamase
Rock of Dunamase
The castle was built in the second half of the 12th Century

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Timahoe Round Tower
Timahoe Round Tower
These round towers are quite common in Ireland. They were commonly used by monks for defence. Their point of entrance is quite a bit off the ground, so if attacked, they'd climb up a rope ladder then pull the ladder up, making it harder for an attacker to get in. Defence structure 1.0. This was one built in the 1100's.

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As I said this was a rather showery day. I think this an interesting sight to see the condensation rising from a small wood.

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This is just some random countryside photo. As you can see from the second photos much of the low lands has been flooded. This is replicated across the country from the rather wet winter we've had.

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A pilot enjoying his day out 😉

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Ballykeefe Amphitheatre
This is a lovely little outdoor theatre nestled beside some hills.
Ballykeefe Amphitheatre

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Burnchurch Castle
Burnchurch Castle
This is a 15th century Norman Tower House

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Kells Augustinian Priory
Kells Augustinian Priory
Founded in 1193, it's one of the largest medieval monuments in Ireland.

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Kilree Round Tower
Kilree Round Tower
Another round tower. I told you they are common!

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Jerpoint Abbey

Jerpoint Abbey
Jerpoint is a famous tourist spot. It was built in 1180.

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Dunbrody Famine Ship

Dunbrody Famine Ship
This ship is a reproduction of an 1840 famine ship (ship that took Irish emigrants trying to escape the famine, to the USA). Many many of these people died on the voyage and the population of Ireland fell from 8M to 5M during this period and hasn't yet fully recovered.

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Huntington Castle
Huntington Castle
A castle built in 1625.

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Duckett's Grove

Duckett's Grove
A Ruined 19th Century House

A few nice sights from one small part of Ireland. No big international trip, but there is always plenty to be seen in your local area.

This trip covered just 121 NM. So you don't have to travel very far to see nice things. You just have to know where to look and keep your eyes open. Low level VFR flight has a lot to offer that you simply can't see when up high. It's good to get down low from time to time!

All photos were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S22 phone. Some were taken using the 3X photo zoom, some were not. The only alterations I made were cropping and rotating them.

Here is the track.

I used the EasyVFR scenic sights feature to select the sights to visit, and to navigate to them (it gives a photos to help making finding them easy to identify and gives a bit of information on each sight).

I've have no big trip to report for some time, but hopefully a few Irish sights will be of interest to some.

Colm