It was Edward (aka "Eddie) King of the brand new Wild Atlantic Music Tours (W.A.M.T.) who engaged me to lead the company's first ever group on a Burren guided walk on a glorious, sunny day this April. I met the group on the coast on the last day of their 6 day traditional music tour of the sweet County Clare. They were in uber-ebullient form having spent an exceptional week in the company of their musical chaperone, the renowned multi-instrumentalist Kevin Crawford.

Coastal Burren was its best with very generous views of the North Atlantic, the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, the south Connemara coastline, the Cliffs of Moher and the rocky, majestic Burren itself. On and on and the craic was good to paraphrase Van Morrison.

The Burren had just begun to bloom and we got a glimpse of the region's's bizarre warm climate/cold climate flower mélange with the Early Purple Orchid (Orchis Mascula) and the Spring Gentian (Gentiana Verna) thriving within inches of each other.

Most of the group hailed from the U.SA. However, I do recall a couple from Stratford, Canada and I won't forget Simona from Cagliari in a hurry. I lived in Italia for five years and Sardinia has a place in my heart. Pete took sublime photos. Everybody was extremely affable and enthusiastic. It sure didn't seem like work to me - au contraire it was a real pleasure to be inside the WAMT "love bubble" for a couple of hours!

We hiked in the south-west of the Burren, where coastal plants like Common Scurvygrass ( Cochlearia officinalis ) add to the bewildering Apine-Arctic-Mediterranean mix. The plant is a rich source of Vitamin C and was used in the past to prevent scurvy, a nightmare ailment caused by Vitamin C deficiency. The ailment widely afflicted the labouring classes during the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s as the potato (the peasant's main source of Vitamin C) was decimated by a fungus for six pestilential years. We associate scurvy today with the developing world. However, the disease is on the rise again in the developed world due to deficient diet.

Our walk may have been a symphony of stone and sea and plants but the show was stolen in the end by Ireland's only reptile, the viviparous lizard (Lacerta viviapara). Viviparous creatures are so called as they bring forth their young live rather than in the form of eggs. The noun is viviparity! The lizard likes the bare limestone of the Burren. It draws heat from the stone and the sun. When it is energised sufficiently by the heat, it goes a-hunting for insects and spiders. It is only about 36 centimetres long (15 inches). The lizard is elusive so we were the lucky ones. It is the most northerly non-marine reptile in the world.

Snakes are reptiles too and the story goes that we had them in Ireland in the past. In fact, our patron saint Patrick is credited with banishing them from Ireland according to over-imaginative hagiographers or writers of the lives of saints. However, science can be inconvenient and the truth is that there have never been snakes in Ireland. The hagiographers were so ideologically skewed that they may have been using the snakes as a metaphor for the paganism that the evangelist Patrick triumphed over. I guess the moral of the story is that the narrative of Patrick and the snakes is a load of "paddywhackerooney "(Celtic codswallop!).

"The Kinnity Sessions" (2004) by super goup Lúnasa was one of the soundtracks of the lives of myself and Eimer when we lived in Dublin . That is before we moved west and had family. So it was immense to meet up with Lúnasa flute player Kevin Crawford as he led the first ever W.A.M.T. group on its remarkable week-long musical extravaganza.

Kevin assured me that Lúnasa is still very much an active project. He is also a member of another great trad outfit, The Teetotallers, in tandem with two other giants of the Irish traditional music scene - Martin Hayes and John Doyle. Kevin also serially collaborates with other great musicians and singers. One of his most recent collaborations was with the New York singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant. Kevin has been living in Brooklyn for the past six years and his musical endeavours take him back to Ireland for about six weeks each year. He is great fun and unassuming. Happy to meet, sorry to part.

Finally, a big bualadh bos (round of applause) for Eddie and his W.A.M.T. partner Robert for the barnstorming start to their venture. W.A.M.T. is cutting edge cultural tourism laced with lots and lots of fun. Go n-eirigh an bóthar leo! (May the road rise with them!).