I need to reiterate that I am referring to County Roscommon in the middle of Ireland, and not the one in the USA.
On a visit in May 2014 I took a lot of photographs. Many of these will appear in these blogs in due course. One is shown below. In the earlier blog “What sort of place is Roscommon (1)”, I referred to the emptiness. You can play ‘spot the house’ in this picture.
The land consists of gently rolling hills. There are a number of rivers and lakes. This is indicative of poor draining soil. Everything is very green. Roscommon has a maritime climate with mild weather and plenty of rain. Average annual rainfall is 40 inches (1 metre). The rain is distributed quite evenly across the year. Roscommon appears to be suitable for grazing animals. It is not the sort of land that would be chosen for allotments or market gardens. There is very little evidence of attempts to grow crops. The farmers produce meat, or meat, or more meat. There is little to comfort a vegetarian. Back in 1841 the land was divided into many small plots. People grew potatoes as their staple diet. Survival must always have been balanced on a knife edge.
The picture shows the River Suck, on the southern border of Roscommon. It is taken from the County Galway side, near Dunamon, about 5 miles west of Roscommon Town. The term ‘flood plain’ seems particularly appropriate.