Slieve Muck ( ; ) is one of the Mourne Mountains in

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It has a height of . The River Bann has its source on the northern slope. Slieve Muck has three summits which are composed of

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

shale covering the underlying granite. The shale forms an escarpment near the eastern side of the summits. The western slope is grassy and has a number of small streams flowing into the Deer's Meadow below. The eastern slope below the escarpment is made up of stony

scree Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. The term ''scree'' is ap ...

with lighter coloured areas appearing to spell out POV when seen from a distance, local people have used their imagination to complete the word Poverty, which has led to the mountain also being referred to as Poverty Mountain.

Physical characteristics

Standing at 673 metres above sea level, Slieve Muck forms the geological junction between the Eastern and Central Mournes. The mountain consists of three summits composed of Silurian shales overlying

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, with a distinctive well-defined escarpment on its southern and eastern sides. The mountain has markedly different vegetation patterns on its opposing slopes. The western slope is dominated by wet rough grassland where '' Nardus stricta'' (mat-grass) is the predominant species. In contrast, the eastern slope is predominantly covered with heather (

Ericaceae The Ericaceae () are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with about 4,250 known species spread acros ...

), with '' Calluna vulgaris'' (common heather) occurring more frequently than '' Erica'' species. Near the summit, vegetation becomes noticeably sparser, characterized as unimproved acid grassland according to vegetation surveys conducted in the early 1990s. The soil composition varies across the mountain. The hard siliceous granites of the Mourne uplands, combined with the wet climate, have given rise to poor infertile soils. These include freely-draining acid brown earths and highly leached, extremely acid peat

podsol Podzols, also known as podosols, spodosols, or espodossolos, are the typical soils of coniferous or Taiga, boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on he ...

s. Blanket peats measuring between 0.2–0.3 meters deep cover the mountain regardless of elevations. On the wetter western flanks, species of ''

Sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store water, since ...

'' (bog moss) are common, while the overall plant cover near the summit is reduced compared to lower elevations. Pollen analysis studies conducted in 1989–1990 indicate that these vegetation patterns have remained largely unchanged for at least three centuries, suggesting the current ecological character of Slieve Muck is of considerable antiquity.

References

{{Mountains and hills of Ulster Mountains and hills of County Down Marilyns of Northern Ireland Hewitts of Northern Ireland Mountains under 1000 metres