Part of The Clare Collection
The Clare Collection is a captivating series of wall-mounted stone reliefs, each carved by hand from Irish limestone sourced in County Galway. Though the material originates just beyond Clare’s northern boundary, it shares a geological lineage with the Burren itself – fossil-rich, layered, and formed under ancient seas. This stone is not merely a surface to be worked but a partner in the storytelling, its natural veining, tonal variation, and embedded fossils echoing the land it helps to depict.
Each piece in the collection is a tactile tribute to the rugged terrain, cultural memory, and quiet drama of the Burren in County Clare. These reliefs are not idealised landscapes but grounded interpretations – shaped by both the enduring features of the region and the subtle, shifting moods of light, weather, and time.
The Burren Landscape
This relief turns away from the summit to focus on the quiet geometry of the Burren’s lower slopes – where dry stone walls thread across the land like ancient scripts, and the limestone pavement stretches outward in a rhythmic grid of clints and grikes. It is a landscape both exposed and intimate, shaped not by spectacle but by slow, deliberate hand and time.
The carving honours the quiet order of these walls, built without mortar yet standing for centuries, marking boundaries and holding stories. Beneath them, the stone itself is fractured and patterned by nature – the glaciated limestone pavement revealing a terrain as sculptural as it is ecological.
Using native limestone as both subject and medium, this piece draws attention to the lived-in layers of the Burren – not just its peaks, but the working land, the human imprint, and the subtle dialogue between culture and geology. It is a study in balance, craft, and endurance.