Cape Clear did not disappoint. The south coast of Ireland was battered by a severe storm for most of my recent stay. The winds were so high and the sea so fierce that I wondered whether they would move the island closer to the mainland. I'm happy to report that the ferry journey home was the same distance as before. The weather wasn't apocalyptic all the time. In fact, there was one day with utterly clear skies. I don't usually like clear skies. They bore the pants off me. But on this occasion, I reckoned I could use the conditions at sunset to photograph Dun an Oir (the Golden Fort). The sun would sink down behind the fort and the empty sky would be filled with deep blues and oranges, and all shades in between. In my mind's eye, the photograph was gobsmacking. You should have seen it. However, there is one overriding principle in Irish landscape photography. It goes: Mother Nature loves to hand out big fat mugs of 'Nope'. Just before sunset, heavy clouds rolled in on the horizon.

But the picture of Dun an Oir was still terrific

I'm still very pleased with the photograph I took (above). I'm especially pleased with the dark foreground rock formation that mirrors the shape of the Golden Fort in the middle distance. The fort itself, because it is a ruin, looks fragile in comparison to the tusk of rock nearer to the viewer. All of which makes this one of my favourite photographs of 2018. You'll find a couple of others further on in this email.