THE LAKES OF Killarney – an iconic Irish landscape, well known here and abroad, right?

But how well do you know the 25,000 acres that make up the whole of Killarney National Park? Kerry photographer Norman McCloskey says that even he was astounded by the hidden vales and peaks, wooded glens and secret ruins that he came across in a three-year exploration of the park with his trusty camera to hand.

His project is now captured in a new photography book, Parklight. His aim, says McCloskey, was to seek out new angles and vistas that would surprise even National Parks and Wildlife service staff: “I was delighted to hear them ask the same question each time: ‘Where’s that?’”

He told TheJournal.ie:

The idea came to me while I was exploring a new part of the park, a place I thought I knew well enough. How wrong was I, and how glad I was to be that wrong. There was a multitude of tracks and trails, rivers, hidden valleys, woods and peaks that were all to be explored. Enough for a book and so the idea was born which proved too irresistible to ignore.

The efforts of three years of trekking across bog and peak are gathered in Parklight – as well as photographs, there are interesting sections on the built heritage in the park and the poignant history of its Famine-era population, now long perished.

The park is also home to several of Ireland’s oldest natural heritage highlights – to Wild Red deer (one of the oldest indigenous herds in Europe); to one of the largest and oldest oak woodland areas in Ireland; and to Ireland’s oldest trees, the Reenadinna yew forest – one of only three remaining yew forests in Europe.

Parklight is available to buy for €30RRP hardback from bookstores nationwide but also from online if you click here. Norman has kindly offered TheJournal.ie readers a 10% discount off the book when ordering online if you use the code thejournal.