Geograph - photograph every grid square

A steep climb leads from the road to this lonely spot overlooking Lough Gill. The threatening clouds portend a heavy rainstorm blowing in from the Atlantic.

My thanks to Oliver Dixon for the following text.

The scene is described in the ballad "The song of O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni" by Thomas Moore 1779-1852, Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, most remembered for the lyrics of "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer".

The song describes events which led up to the first efforts of Britain to subjugate Ireland.

The first stanza runs:

The valley lay smiling before me,
Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
That sadden'd the joy of my mind.
I look'd for the lamp which, she told me,
Should shine when her Pilgrim return'd;
But, though darkness began to infold me,
No lamp from the battlements burn'd!