‘After two days march, without anything remarkable but bad quarters, we entered into the barony of Boireann, of which it is said, that it is a country where there is not water enough to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him.’

This quote from Edmund Ludlow, Cromwellian General in 1651 leads the introduction to This is the Burren, Carsten Krieger’s excellent photo book on one of Ireland’s most beautiful and fascinating habitats.

Krieger, who was born in Germany, visited the Burren after learning it was the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. More visits followed before he and his wife finally decided to move to County Clare to be close to this unique landscape. After publishing his first book, Carsten moved on to other projects, but said, ‘The Burren always stayed close to my heart and in all the books I have made over the past decade the Burren pops up in each of them in one way or another.’

Now based in County Clare, the photographer is best known for landscape images but he is equally comfortable shooting portraits, wildlife and events. Krieger has photographed, written and contributed to ten books on Ireland’s landscape, wildlife and heritage. He regularly works for local tourism and media and contributes to the online photography magazines dpreview.com and slrlounge.com.

In 2011, the same year the Burren was granted UNESCO-endorsed Geopark status, Carsten returned to the Burren to take more photographs, a project that turned into this book.  He said of the project - ‘Although four years sounds like a long time I could easily have spent another couple of years exploring and photographing the Burren … and most likely will do so. Every trip brings something new and unexpected and a reason to return another time.’

This is the Burren, by Carsten Krieger | €19.99  • Hardback •  Collins Press