More than Moher – The Slieve Liag Cliffs

Sliabh Liag, sometimes Slieve League or Slieve Liag is a mountain on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, Ireland. At 601 metres it has some of the highest sea cliffs on the island of Ireland.

Although less famous than the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, Slieve Liag’s cliffs reach almost three times higher. There is a nice looking trail though I did not have time to try it out: https://www.irishtrails.ie/Trail/Sliabh-Liag-Pilgrim-Path/377/

Here is a downloadable map of the trail: https://www.irishtrails.ie/maps/Sliabh%20Liag%20Pilgrim%20Path.pdf

There are also these mysterious sculptures. I could only discover that Cassidy Brothers provided the stone, but could not find information about the artist or artists.

In Donegal there are many different rock types including rocky shores, storm beaches and the unique sandy mochair grasslands. Many are made of Pre-Cambrian, quartzite and Gneiss. These rocks are radically altered from their original state by being subjected to extreme pressure and heat at some stage in their history and referred to metamorphic rocks because of their changed form.

The lime-stones have become marbles and mud- stones have turned to hard but brittle slates, sand- stones have formed into the rock type called Quartzite which is the main component of many of Ireland’s mountains. Quartzite is composed almost entirely of the grey white mineral called Silica. The cliffs have developed over the past 100,000 years, during and since the last ice age.

Slieve League, Donegal

The cliffs at Slieve League form part of the International Appalachian Trail, as they can be directly correlated with rocks found in Newfoundland, Canada. There has been slumping on the seaward slope, and marine erosion has played only a small part in the shaping of the coastal profile, even though there is exposure to high-energy Atlantic waves.