Land and Sky Lens

Land and Sky Lens Ireland's forgotten history, folklore and hidden places - filmed from land and sky. New stories every week. By Cian.
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11/09/2026

One of Ireland’s most beautiful lighthouses exists because more than 250 people never made it home. 🇮🇪

On 4 December 1811, the Royal Navy frigate HMS Saldanha was caught in a violent storm off Donegal.
She turned back towards the shelter of Lough Swilly, but struck rocks near Fanad Head. More than 250 people were lost.

And then comes one of the strangest parts of the story…

According to the old account preserved at Fanad, the ship’s parrot survived the wreck, identified by a silver collar bearing the ship’s name.

The tragedy led Captain Hill of the Royal Navy to argue that a lighthouse was desperately needed here even stating that the Saldanha might have survived had a light already existed.

Years later, on St Patrick’s Day 1817, Fanad Lighthouse shone for the first time.

More than two centuries later, it still stands at the entrance to Lough Swilly.

đź“Ť Fanad Head Lighthouse, Co. Donegal

Beautiful from the air but once you know the reason it was built, you look at it very differently.

10/09/2026

A Munster king marched into Donegal and ordered one of the north’s great royal strongholds destroyed. 🇮🇪

In 1101, Muirchertach Ua Briain, great-grandson of Brian Boru, led an army north into Inishowen.

His rival, Domnall Mac Lochlainn, would neither submit nor recognise him as High King.
So Muirchertach struck at the symbol of his power: Grianán of Aileach.

The Annals of the Four Masters record that the fortress was demolished, with Muirchertach ordering his men to carry stones from Aileach towards Limerick , one for every sack of provisions they had carried north.

And somehow, that's only part of the story.
Long before those medieval kings, Irish tradition connected this hill with the Dagda and the Tuatha DĂ© Danann.

📍 Grianán of Aileach, Inishowen, Co. Donegal

30/08/2026

There are two very different stories behind the Giant’s Causeway.

Science gives us one: volcanic activity almost 60 million years ago produced the extraordinary landscape of roughly 40,000 basalt columns we see today.

Folklore gives us another.

The famous legend says Finn McCool built a road across the sea to challenge the Scottish giant Benandonner.

But Causeway guides in the 1700s and early 1800s told a different version.

Finn built it for a woman he loved in Scotland.

His grandmother, terrified of losing him, supposedly summoned storms each night to destroy his work. Finn kept rebuilding until he eventually crossed the sea only to die in his lover’s arms.

And centuries later, another chapter has been added to the Causeway’s story: more than 10,000 coins inserted by visitors have now been removed because their corrosion was damaging the ancient basalt.
Fire, giants, love, tragedy… and nearly 60 million years of history beneath your feet.

Which legend had you heard before?

The lesser-known love story is genuinely documented by the National Trust as a tale once told by Causeway guides and preserved in an 1830 poem, so you can confidently frame it as folklore rather than presenting it as history.

25/08/2026

Some things never change unfortunately

17/08/2026

They built it to secure English power in Ireland.
More than 800 years later, Limerick is still standing proudly Irish. 🇮🇪

King John’s Castle has watched centuries of conquest, siege, resistance and survival unfold on the banks of the Shannon.

Sarsfield. The Siege of Limerick. The Treaty. The Wild Geese.

These walls have seen some of the most turbulent chapters in our city’s history.

But this one means a little more to me.

Limerick is home.

Our history. Our scars. Our city.

Luimneach Abú. 🇮🇪

Limerick people — what piece of our history should I film next?

05/08/2026

The first two rescue rockets missed.

Before dawn on 8 March 1960, a violent Atlantic storm drove the MV Plassy onto Finnis Rock, off Inis OĂ­rr.

The engine room flooded. The lights failed. The ship’s lifeboat broke free and disappeared into the storm leaving all eleven sailors trapped aboard.

Islanders dragged rocket rescue equipment across the island by hand.

The first line missed.

The second missed.

The third caught the mast.

One by one, every sailor was hauled through the raging surf in a breeches buoy. Captain Thomas Wilson came ashore last.

All eleven survived.

Later storms pushed the Plassy onto the limestone shore, where it remains today made famous around the world through the opening credits of Father Ted.

And according to local island lore, bottles of Scotch from the ship’s cargo were hidden in potato fields before customs arrived.

A famous wreck. A heroic rescue. And one of Inis Oírr’s most extraordinary stories.

29/07/2026

“THE FAMINE IS OVER!” 🏆🟢🔴

Irish commentary simply hits differently.

Mayo came from seven points behind to defeat Kerry 1-20 to 1-17, ending a 75-year wait to bring Sam Maguire home. The emotion in that commentary tells you exactly what it meant.

These players compete at an elite level while remaining unpaid amateurs.

Is amateurism what makes the GAA special or has the modern inter-county game outgrown it?

27/07/2026

Did Mayo finally break a 75-year curse—or defeat a legend that was never true?
After Mayo won back-to-back All-Irelands in 1950 and 1951, a story emerged that the team had passed a funeral in Foxford without showing proper respect.
According to legend, a priest declared that Mayo would never win Sam Maguire again while any member of that team remained alive.
What followed made the story almost impossible to ignore: decades of heartbreak, repeated final defeats and generations of supporters waiting for Mayo to win again.
The last surviving starter from 1951, Paddy Prendergast, died in 2021. Dr Mick Loftus, the final surviving member of the wider panel, died in 2023.
But historical research has found major problems with the story. No identified eyewitness ever confirmed the curse, surviving players rejected it, and the funeral later associated with the legend appears to have taken place the day after the team passed through Foxford.

Then, on 26 July 2026, Mayo recovered from seven points down to defeat Kerry 1-20 to 1-17, bringing Sam Maguire home for the first time since 1951.

27/07/2026

Turn the sound on. This is what 75 years of waiting sounds like.

Seven points down, Mayo refused to fold.

Then came the comeback, the final whistle, and Jack Coyne lifting Sam Maguire for the first time since 1951.

Mayo 1-20. Kerry 1-17.

For the players, the supporters and the generations who never stopped believing... Sam is finally home.

The score, seven-point comeback and first All-Ireland victory since 1951 are confirmed in the official GAA match report.

22/07/2026

Why was this Irish round tower never finished? 🇮🇪

Inis Cealtra Holy Island was once a major monastic and pilgrimage centre on Lough Derg.

Norse raiders attacked the island in 836 and again in 922, yet the community survived and the site remained an important religious centre.

Rising around 24 metres or 80 feet above the island, its famous round tower is missing the conical stone cap normally associated with Irish round towers.

During archaeological excavations, no stones believed to have formed a fallen cap were found. That supports the possibility that the tower was never completed, although the precise reason remains unknown.

Local folklore offers a darker explanation. Different versions blame a beautiful woman, a witch or a confrontation with the stonemason that supposedly brought construction to an end. These stories are recorded tradition not established history.

Archaeological mystery or local legend which explanation do you believe?

đź“Ť Inis Cealtra, Lough Derg, County Clare

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