Mark Joyce is the fourth generation to manage the craft shop in Recess. With a background in the arts Mark has created an environment that emphasises quality together with classic design. Mark studied in Dun Laoughaire College of Art & Design and has had three books published. A photography book celebrating the Connemara landscape and two books about the magic & myths of Ireland. Marks original paintings are ever popular and can be seen in the shop gallery.

For over two hundredyears our green marble has been used in some of the most important buildings in the world. Examples showcasing our marble include Leinster House, the seat of the Irish govenment. The museum building in Trinity College Dublin, home of the book of Kells. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. The Natural History museum London. The University Club at West 54th street at New York. More recently our marble has been used in Dolce & Gabbana’s venice boutique. Ashford Castle, Ireland premier hotel has used our marble extensively in ther recent refurbishment, as well the famous Guinness hop store in Dublin (see image)

We have been selling Mark Joyce painting from our art gallery in Recess for over 20 years. If you are interested in purchasing a painting please us about availability contact us about availability.

Connemara marble has long been considered Irelands national gem. It is no surprise that James Joyce mentions it twice in his world famous book 'Ulysses'. In a telling passage he writes about our marble amongst other treasures, as being "The finest in the whole word". Jack yeats Ireland's formost painter had a treasured block of marble with his monogram carved in and when Princess Grace and Prince Rainier visited Ireland in 1961 they were presented with a Connemara Marble casket. The Argentinian writer Borges was given a small piece of marble in the early 1980's which he carried wth him till his death

This is a short essay describing the geology of Connemara, written for us by Professor Bernard Leake. Professor Leake has been mapping the geology of Connemara since the 1950's. His Connemars series of maps are the definitive geological maps of the area.

Whereas most marbles are metamorphosed (i.e. heated, recrystallized and squeezed tectonically under great pressures inside the Earth) limestones made of calcium carbonate, the Connemara marble is derived from a magnesium-calcium carbonate (dolomite) together with a little original mica and clay minerals which added some silica and a little iron.  This was deposited as a sediment in the sea just before the 720 to 635 million year old Cryogenian geological period (‘Snowball Earth’) occurred when the whole Earth is thought to have been ice covered.  Very much later, probably as the 490 to 465 million year old metamorphism developed, solutions first silicified the deeply buried rock and then it was heated to unusually high metamorphic temperatures, over 600oC by the extra heat that came from the 470 million year old intrusive magmas (melted rocks) that now occur as rocks from Slyne Head-Mannin to Roundstone-Cashel and eastwards.  The silica, magnesium and a trace of iron made the mineral olivine which was later converted into the green mineral serpentine when late fluids passed through the rock. This gave the characteristic green colour mixed with white from the calcium carbonate (calcite) while the tectonic squeezing and folding produced the texture.  Although this particular dolomitic layer has been traced northwards across Donegal and even to Scotland e.g. on the Isle of Islay, nowhere else did this layer suffer sufficient heat to form olivine which is why green Connemara Marble is so unusual, even when compared with dolomitic mountain ranges elsewhere. In Connemara the marble only occurs at certain spots now, not as the original continuous layer it was because tectonism so squeezed the layer that it thinned, broke and flowed into lenses which is where the quarries now are.

Professor Bernard Elgey Leake  is an English geologist. He is Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Glasgow, was Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow at Cardiff University 2000-2002 and has been an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University since 1997.