Marble and Tombs: Day 17 in Ireland

Finally, after 4 days of mountain climbing up and down, down and up, up and down again Bencorragh we concluded our mapping with some marble sightseeing and archaeology. The Connemara reigon of western Ireland is known for it's 900 million year old Connemara marble. It's rare and it's all of these crazy beautiful shades of green (serpentine). So in the morning we got the opportunity to visit one of the quarry's that they get the marble from, including some cool rock drilling demonstrations.

Marble drill

Connemara Marble

Connemara Marble

Marble drilling demonstration

Connemara Marble

Fossilized marble

Workshop

Cutting the stone

Finished product

 After our tour of the quarry, we met up with a local archaeologist who took us on guided tour of some of some local archaeological site in the Connemara region...

A cobbled Irish beach

An centuries old fishing community

A ruined ancient tomb and a house from the 1800s

The archaeologist explaining to us the setup of the tomb

The ruined entrance of the tomb 

 After moseying about looking at cool ruined houses and tombs we stopped at the Connemara Marble shop on the way back to Petersburg for people to buy trinkets and marbled knick knacks.