冰河世紀(jì)留下的歷史文化遺產(chǎn)，在現(xiàn)在的冰島究竟還留有多少印記？
This is the only horse race in the world to be run at the edge of the sea.

Held once a year on Laytown Beach near Dublin, it reflects Ireland’s centuries-old love affair with the horse. Man has bred these horses for speed and endurance. He has left his own mark on what time and nature have already made, just as he has to help to mold the Irish landscape, animals, and plants.

And before humans, older, more profound forces were at work. This ancient land might have seen timeless but change lies at its very heart. Ireland has weariest to its still. Ireland's hills and mountains are formed from her oldest, hardest rocks, their part of the legacy of her geological past, the foundation on which this island is built. But the landscapes we see today have more recent origins. Everywhere Ireland has been sculpted in some way by one of the greatest forces of nature, ice. For almost two million years, Ireland like the rest of Europe was locked in the grip of ice age. Glaciers, vast moving sheets of ice destroyed nearly all life and transformed the current woods of the land. No part of Ireland completely escaped their impact. In the mountains of Mourne in Northern Ireland, the glaciers never quite reach the summits, but the cold they carried with them did. Frost actions split and shattered the rock faces, chiseling steep ruins and deeply carved peaks.

One bird of the mountains has made the most of this ice age legacy. The Peregrine Falcon comes to the Mournes to nest. Remote rock faces and inaccessible edges are the safest place to raise their chicks. And the land around provides good hunting for the adults. All good reasons why there’re more Peregrines here than anywhere else in Ireland.

But even Peregrines couldn't have lived here until the ice age ended, around 13,000 years ago. Exactly when they stick their fame to Ireland or plants isn’t clear. But since then their fortunes like everything else here have changed with the times. Today they're wide spread throughout the country. But less than 40 years ago, Peregrines hit an all-time low. Poisoned by insecticides designed to protect seeds and crops, their numbers died to just to 27 successful nesting pairs, bringing them parallelly close to extinction. Only when the chemicals were banned did the Peregrines recovery begin. It’s been a slow process, but they are now thriving and reclaiming the mountain landscape then inherited from the ice.