Virtual Tours

Killiney Cliffs, Dublin

This tour explores the sedimentary cliffs of Killiney Beach in Dublin. The ocean is slowly eroding the cliffs, moving them inland and exposing new sediments while nourishing the beach with plenty of glacial sand, gravel, and boulders.

A second, shorter tour of Killiney highlights some of the erosion control measures enacted along the beach and the impacts these structures have on beach morphology

Slieve Carr, County Mayo

Small mountain glaciers were once common across Ireland's highlands. In places such as Slieve Carr, glaciers carved out bowl-shaped depressions, called cirques, high on hill slopes. Tarns, or glacially-carved mountain lakes, now fill some of these bowls. The sediments removed from higher upslope were set down by ice in ridges called moraines. In this tour, you'll see evidence of erosion, deposition, and how landscapes change over time once a glacier has melted away. (This tour pairs well with a visit to Ben Corr!)

Ben Corr, County Galway

Glaciers are fantastic agents of erosion, and have left much of Ireland's western highlands molded and smoothed through millennia of glacial plucking and abrasion. In this tour, you'll see evidence of erosion, deposition, and how landscapes change over time once a glacier has melted away. (This tour pairs well with a visit to Slieve Carr in nearby County Mayo!)

Ticknock, Wicklow Mountains

Glaciers are highly efficient agents of erosion and deposition, but the degree to which glaciers are capable of affecting landscapes is dependent on the characteristics of the glacier itself.

In this virtual tour, you will explore Ticknock in the northern Wicklow Mountains and investigate geomorphic signals of past glaciation during the last ice age.

Lough Mask, County Galway

Glacial erratics, boulders picked up by glaciers and set down elsewhere, are one of Ireland's most common indicators of glaciation. Erratics are ubiquitous on the landscape, from rolling farm fields to steep coastal cliffs.

Near the south shore of Lough Mask, erratics are set down on weathered limestone pavement, revealing a complex history of glaciation, deposition, and erosion.

Glen of Imaal and Lugnaquilla, County Wicklow

The Wicklow Mountains host an array of glacial landforms, some of the finest of which can be found in the Glen of Imaal. As the Glen is an active military firing range, access is limited and so the glacial geomorphology of the Glen is rarely seen up close.

This tour provides rare access to the Glen of Imaal and then takes visitors up the slopes of Lugnaquilla - the tallest mountain in Ireland outside Kerry - for a bird's eye view of the Glen.