Comeragh Mountains
— — the dark water at the foot of the wall.
Not only on a wall.
“Old Red Sandstone shoulders rising from south-east Ireland, ringed by corrie lakes the glaciers left behind. Coumshingaun is the one people come for: a near-circular lake under a horseshoe wall of cliff almost 1,200 feet high, often described as one of the finest examples of a corrie in Europe. Mahon Falls drops off the western shoulder in a single thread of white. The light here is Atlantic light, washed and changeable, and the lakes hold the cloud the same way they hold the sky.
Comeragh Mountains, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
The Comeragh Mountains rise in County Waterford in the south-east of Ireland, between the towns of Dungarvan, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. The range stretches roughly 20 kilometres north to south and reaches its summit at Fauscoum, 792 metres (2,598 feet) above the sea. Its closest neighbours are the Monavullagh Mountains to the south and the Knockmealdowns to the west, forming a continuous belt of Old Red Sandstone country across central Munster. Access is usually from the R676 along the western edge or the R675 along the coast, with walking trailheads near Mahon Falls and Coumshingaun. The range lies about 200 kilometres south-west of Dublin and a half-hour drive inland from Dungarvan Bay.
The Comeraghs are built of Old Red Sandstone, a Devonian-age rock laid down roughly 400 million years ago when this part of Ireland sat in a warm continental basin. The same formation runs through the neighbouring Knockmealdown Mountains and gives the Comeraghs their reddish-brown weathering colour, especially visible on the cliffs above Coumshingaun. The shapes that define the range, though, are younger: corrie bowls, hanging valleys and U-shaped notches cut into the sandstone during the last glaciation, which ended about 11,700 years ago. The horseshoe wall above Coumshingaun rises some 365 metres (about 1,200 feet) from the lake surface and is widely treated as a textbook cirque in Irish geography teaching.
Two walks define a visit to the Comeraghs. Mahon Falls, an 80-metre cascade on the western flank, is reached by a short marked path from the car park off the R676 above Kilmacthomas; the round trip from car park to the base of the falls takes about an hour. The Coumshingaun loop is more demanding: a circular hike of roughly 7.5 kilometres up onto the rim of the cirque and back, with steep drops and exposed sections that should not be attempted in low cloud or strong wind. Both trailheads sit within a 25-minute drive of Dungarvan, the nearest town with hotels, restaurants and a tourist office. There are no entry fees; the mountains are open country.