Landscape and Natural History of Ireland Landscape and Natural History Ireland, the island was formed by rising seas as the glaciers of the last Ice Age melted. It has been shaped into a unique blend of mountains, bogs, lakes, rivers, and remote wave-lashed islands.
Coastal erosion ensures that the islands nature is in a constant state of change.
Ireland's rock framework is composed of a central, low-lying limestone plain, hemmed in by a rim of mountains, with only the occasional break allowing access to the sea. The central plain is, for the most part, covered with a mantle of boulder clay deposited during the Ice Age and overlain in the centre by raised bogs - unique domes of peat covered in their pristine form with sphagnum moss and heather. A flight across Ireland confirms its legendary green mantle, though today this is pock-marked with extensive brown 'deserts' where the raised bogs are being stripped to supply hungry electricity generating stations and the equally demanding domestic fuel and horticulture markets. Ireland's rich green pastures have been nurtured over the centuries by the steady fall of rain carried on westerly winds. Much of this rain eventually finds its way into the centre of the 'saucer' from whence the mighty River Shannon carries it back to the Atlantic Ocean.