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The haunting national forest at Gougane Barra is straight out of a fairy legend.  Your eyes can play tricks on you here, sometimes you catch something out of the corner of your eye but when you turn your head it is gone, whatever, or whomever, it was. Hmmm. (see below)

St. Finbar's chapel sits on the tiny island in the middle of Gougane Lake alongside the ruins of the 17th century stone monastery with it's monk's cells and Stations of the Cross. This monastery was built on the site of Finbar's original monastery built in the (gulp) 6th century. It's all set in a gorgeous bowl of mountains west of Macroom, all of which makes Gougane Barra as spiritual an experience as Ireland has to offer.  The little stream that flows thru the mossy forest is the headwaters of the River Lee, Cork's sacred river.

(And by the way, across the water from the chapel is the Gougane Barra Hotel, our No. 1 favorite place to stay in all of Ireland.)

I've done two other paintings of Gougane Barra.