Breathing life back into Bréifne

Another Life:Even if Earth is changing, this is still the peak of summer, zenith of a so-far reasonably temperate sun. More leaves, more flowers than you have ever seen in Ireland crowd into the carbon-sweetened air, all jostling for a fair share (if possible, more than a fair share) of space and light.

Just for a week or so, until wind or rain mess it up - as they will - the plants of the ferny boreen down to the sea get their own flawless show, unfolding and interlacing perfectly drawn forms of foliage and blossom straight from nature's catalogue. From next month, tossed heaps and tangles, but today first prize for everything that grows.

Emboldened by joined-up sunshine, the Irish - some of us, anyway - are discovering or rediscovering the island, equipped with travel guides of ever-increasing beauty and sophistication. Quite the most impressive this year celebrates Bréifne, that magical Camelot quarter of the northwest (to mix cultures). Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon have united under the banner of "Bréifne, a brave soldier-woman, daughter of Beoan MacBeothaigh", a flamboyantly inclusive piece of heritage branding rooted in the fluid geography of the region's ruling families.

There's a huge effort of regional professionalism in this guide and its accompanying DVD film, a surging wish to lay to rest the decades of development neglect and border-hauntings. This is very lovely, unacknowledged land, now unafraid to evoke the brooding, "secret" feel of so much of its grandeur.

The book's production has been based in the Geological Survey of Ireland, informed by the latest explorations of the great limestone armature of Bréifni, from the battleship prow of Belbulbin and the fossil shore of Streedagh to the caves of Cuilagh Mountain and Marble Arch. Twenty years ago, the hardest limestone in all Ireland was chipped and drilled away to widen and deepen the Ballinamore-Ballyconnell Canal, its banks now healed in a soothing, bosky resurgence of willow and ash.

All this is exquisitely photographed and filmed. Most of the still photography is by Mike Bunn, whose move from Dublin to Carrick-on-Shannon has translocated a major talent, his lapidary eye delighting equally in the folds of rock and water or of the organic vegetables of Leitrim (these no longer the "blow-in" whimsy they once seemed, but the staple of chefs like Neven Maguire of Blacklion).

As second homes invade the glens, there is something bravely perverse about the pages on farming with Ignatius Maguire, who, as the sixth generation on his holding, still plants potatoes, sows barley, cuts turf, makes hay, milks his cows by hand - and cradles a scarlet-combed cockerel for the camera. He exists, quite warranting his niche in "The Ecology of Bréifne", but, like the rare Arctic alpine flora of the limestone cliffs, enjoy him while you can.

The "in-betweenness" of the region is echoed by another tourism publication, a rambler's guide and illustrated map of the Shannon valley from the western publisher Tír Eolas. It covers the flood plain of the Shannon and Suck between Athlone and Portumna, a stretch that offers the cruiser an ever-opening path between reeds and pastures, but offers the traveller by car or bicycle a maze of daisied cul-de-sacs that seldom quite get to where you'd hoped.

Few people know the valley's byways, botany and wildlife as well as Stephen Heery, who writes the text. (He is also author of Shannon Floodlands and chronicler of the great ecological changes that are overtaking the midlands.)

At this point in June, as the grasses shoot into flower, I think of the richness of grass species in just one square metre of the unploughed, unimproved Shannon callows - a heritage to rank with all the pastoral orchids of the banks.

This is also, of course, a last refuge of the corncrake, but the certainty of hearing it from the meadows by the bridge at Banagher diminishes with every unseasonable summer flood.

For a fuller insight into Ireland's wildlife and ecosystems, try the busy five days of the "Island Ecology" summer school on Cape Clear from July 9th to 13th. The island now has a world reputation as a sighting-point for whales and dolphins and a staging post for migrant birds.

The school is led by biologists Dr Geoff Oliver, who has lived on the island for a decade, and UCC's Dr Paddy Sleeman, a specialist in Ireland's mammals and post-glacial colonisation. Find details at www.oilean-chleire.ie or linked at www.biology.ie.

Bréifne can be bought online (€14 or £10) at www.breifne.ie, and The Shannon Valley (€8) from Tír Eolas at www.tireolas.com