When I arrived at the Claddagh this morning, there was already a crowd of other photographers there. Usually I have the place to myself, so it was funny to see a bunch of people just like myself clicking away. When one of the lads descended the steps of the Canal Basin and walked out onto the ice, I could hardly bear to look. Ok, that’s not true – the first thing I did was switch the camera to Shutter Priority, set the shutter speed to around 1/400 and waited (if something unfortunate was to happen, it might as well be photographed properly].

He was still there when I left, despite everyone pleading with him to get off the ice. The ice did seem very strong where he was standing – there is a big rock behind him that had been thrown from the road which didn’t crack the ice at all. On the other hand, there was an area of no ice further away, and finding out the hard way that the ice won’t support your wait can be a fatal event.

[UPDATE Sunday January 10th] I drove past the Claddagh Basin this morning and there were two people walking on the ice – one was standing beside the two boats in the foreground. It won’t end well.

We’ve had a very cold spell in Ireland this week, with temperatures falling to -6 or -7 Celcius  in the midlands or north of the country. In the Claddagh canal basin, the water froze as it did in the Harbour (I think the lock-gates may have been closed for a night or two). I didn’t get any pictures of the harbour but Kevin Crowley did [you can see his Flickr pictures here and here]. Back in March 2006, there was the coldest night for a decade and some ice formed in the harbour, but it didn’t last as long that time.

I ws surprised to see Lough Atalia frozen over. It is a salt-water lake (an inlet really) and there is quite a tidal current. But the water at the head of the inlet is quite still and that is where most of the ice formed. As you can see, the ice formed at high tide, and when the tide went out, the rocks peeked through the ice sheet.

More pictures of ice on Lough Atalia here.