Valentia Island
Valentia Iceland ( Irish: Dairbhre or Oileán Dairbhre, English and Valencia Iceland. ) Is one of Europe's most westerly inhabited islands. It is located in the southwest of County Kerry in Ireland and has 665 inhabitants ( as of 2011). The mainland is connected in Valentia Portmagee over a bridge. (51 ° 53 'N, 10 ° 22' W51.885 - 10.365 ) There are also a ferry service from April to September of Reenard Point to Knightstown (51 ° 56 'N, 10 ° 17' W51.925 - 10.289 ), the main settlement of the island. The island is 11 km long and 3 km wide.
A ring road opens up the island. While the southern, the R565 that receives traffic, leads the northern, higher ground to the prehistoric monuments ( menhirs, Oghamsteinen and wedge tombs ). Branches to the west and north coasts lead to other places.
The Garden of Glanleam House
In the northeast of the island is the " Glanleam House", whose garden has many sub-tropical plants. Protected from the Atlantic storms by a belt of trees and mountain ranges, this garden has the mildest microclimate throughout Ireland. In the 1830s began Sir Peter George Fitzgerald, the 19th Knight of Kerry ( 1808-1880 ), to plant the garden. In particular, the unique collection of rare and sensitive plants in the southern hemisphere, which otherwise thrive in the British Isles alone in the greenhouse, make this garden so unique. The garden is designed in a naturalistic style with various ways. The plants originate from South America, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Japan. So there are banana trees, myrtles, palms and the largest tree fern Europe. Is also with the gold- colored Luma apiculata " Glanleam Gold" reminds that bloomed for the first time in this garden to the garden.
Mariengrotte
Another attraction of the island is the Grotto, on a former quarry. For this shale were obtained for the British Houses of Parliament. In 1993, a geology student discovered fossilized traces of terrestrial vertebrates. The footprints left behind in the mud had been preserved in the derived from the Devonian rocks. Before about 385 million years ago, a primitive vertebrate was passed along to a muddy swamp land situated at the equator, which forms the south-eastern Ireland today, and had traces as in fresh concrete. The footprints were obtained by silt and were in course of time to stone. These footprints on Valentia Iceland are among the oldest known footprints of life in the country.
Transatlantic cable
Iceland Valentia was the eastern endpoint of the first transatlantic cable, which in 1857 first laid, was from 1866 functional re-laid and then used until 1966. The first functioning transatlantic cable was composed of an electrically conductive strand of six copper wires that are wound around a seventh. In plants for isolation of three separate layers of material gained in Asia latex gutta-percha. The connection was between Valentia Iceland and Trinity Bay in Newfoundland.