Old Volcanic Stories—Bringing Ancient Volcanoes to Life in Ireland’s Geological Heritage Sites

Abstract

Active or recently active volcanic areas present very visible and easy to understand phenomena for the broad population to appreciate as geological heritage. However, in a geologically stable country such as Ireland, with no volcanism evident for tens of millions of years and few clearly visible traces of volcanoes of a ‘school textbook’ nature, the significance of ancient volcanic remains is much harder to explain or to present to visitors to geological heritage sites. This paper explores the wide range of evidence of ancient volcanic activity within recognised geological heritage sites across Ireland, both in County Geological Sites and in the UNESCO Global Geoparks. Some of the stories that can be told using the available evidence are documented, including some of the current efforts to present Ireland’s volcanic geological heritage. The stories are told within the context of the geological and volcanic history of Ireland over the past 500 million years. As such, the promotion of geological heritage is at an early stage, and this contribution may provide inspiration or ideas for approaches to this problem for other countries or terrains with similar ancient volcanic rocks.