The Burren lies south of Galway in County Clare, Ireland. The name Burren is from the Irish - meaning a stony place. Its formation has lain unspoiled since the ice-age and is composed of limestone, the largest area of such in western Europe.
The rolling hills of Burren are composed of limestone pavements with crisscrossing cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints".
Interesting enough, the Burren does have sufficient soil to grow a wide variety of the most unusual and rarest of plants, many of them strange bedfellows.
Burren is rich with historical and archaeological sites. There are more than 90 megalithic tombs in the area.
"The Burren is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing." - Edmund Ludlow
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