The Rock of Cashel, Tipperary

I must have driven past the Rock of Cashel dozens of times over the years. Always glancing up from the N8, always thinking I'd come back properly. This was the evening I finally did.

The sun was low in the west, throwing warm light directly onto the stone walls and the round tower. Partly cloudy sky, which is exactly what you want. Enough cloud to catch colour, enough gaps to let the light through. The Galtee Mountains were disappearing into a band of haze along the ridge, and the whole Tipperary countryside was rolling away flat and green to the horizon.

What made this photograph was the boundary wall. From ground level you barely notice it, but from above it becomes the whole composition. One long, unbroken curve tracing the contours of the limestone hill, holding the cathedral ruins, the round tower, Cormac's Chapel, the graveyard with its carved Celtic crosses, all within its sweep. The seat of the high kings of Munster before the Church took it over in the 12th century.

The scaffolding on Cormac's Chapel is part of a major OPW conservation project that began in 2009 to preserve Ireland's earliest surviving wall frescoes, dating from the 1100s. Practically medieval itself at this stage! I'm glad I finally stopped driving past.