To balance the inland panorama, here is Dungarvan Bay, taken from Bailenagaul in Ring. File size is about 25 MB.

Given it’s size it will load slowly. The time taken to just capture all the various photos meant that the light changed, and I was rotating from South East to North East, so the exposure changed also.

Helvick Harbour wall is on the right, with Bailenagaul beach leading down to it. Across the bay, past the Cardinal Buoy, past Black Rock in the middle, past Carricknamoan, past the far end of Clonea beach, past the low tide exposed rock, past Ballinacourty lighthouse, the Gold Coast golf park, the Gold Coast Hotel, and in to Dungarvan Town, with the Comeragh Mountain looming above.

Dungarvan Bay - click for huge detail

Next is a smaller panorama of Bailenagaul and harbour, just on the other side of the harbour wall where the panorama above was taken.

Bailenagaul Harbour

The water was warmer over here than at Clonea, which is only a few miles away on the far side of Ballinacourty Lighthouse. It was low tide with a Northerly breeze when I took these and Bailenagaul is not a good swim in those conditions, it ends up a long slog back from Helvick so I moved to the much colder Clonea.

This side of the bay is known as Ring, and is a Gaeltacht area, which means the Irish language is the primary language. It’s a beautiful area that has been badly affected by the rampant development of holiday homes and unrestrained building of the worst excesses of the Celtic Tiger, with many questions about planning corruption having been raised.