IGA Whit Weekend Excursion

Roundstone, Co. Galway and Environs

Leader: Maria Cullen

Three Granites, Two Beaches, One Island and Lots of Life!

This weekend excursion (2 days of the long bank-holiday weekend), we will explore three distinct Caledonian Granites (c. 400Ma) of the Bertraghboy Bay area – Murvey, Errisbeg and Roundstone – in their type localities. Errisbeg Mountain (300m) displays the boundary between the granite there with older Lower Palaeozoic Amphibolite rocks, of the Metagabbro-Gneiss Suite (470Ma), to the north. We will visit two stunning Foraminifera “sand” beaches, at Dog’s Bay and Gorteen. In between the beaches lies an Isthmus leading south to a hammerhead-shaped Tombolo with Earawalla Point in the West and Gorteen Point to the East. Inis Ní, an island, connected by a causeway just east of Roundstone Village, will another focal point of our excursion.