Going back to the early 19SO’s my memory of Dublin Bay is of wide open spaces when the tide went out. We lived in Sandymount and out our front gate across the road, was the beach. In springtime when tides were high, we had great fun dodging waves as they crashed over the wall onto
An eel, a dipper, a tomato, a kingfisher or a heron, is there an odd one out on a stretch of the River Dodder? For a very brief time I saw an eel, a small, black, viper looking yet harmless eel wriggling across the shallow river bed out to the middle bed of the low
The former Mission Hall is located on York Road, Ringsend, facing the river Liffey. Its beauitful facade has been kept as it was over 100 years ago, when two sisters of the famous Bewley cafe family decided to build it as a YMCA. The sisters were both very interested in helping people get a foot
Growing up, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, was my favourite TV programme. Twain’s classic gripped me with the escapades of the duo on a raft on the Mississippi. Could we have such a raft in Clondalkin? One summer, 1984, my cousin John O’Byrne came to stay. It so happened that there were
Growing up in Clondalkin, County Dublin, in the 1960s had by far some great advantages over today’s children’s lifestyles. We had back then what seemed the freedom of the world where our countryside and especially our imagination created the excitement for each day. Clondalkin provided a child many exploratory opportunities from investigating ancient castle ruins,
Water, water – growing up near it, you never want to be away from it. I was brought up in Sandymount. Well, the address was Sandymount, but to us it was the tail end of Irishtown, which is the tail end of Ringsend. My dad had gone to sea as a young man, with Irish
When I need time and space to myself, I head to the beach. It’s where I traditionally do my best thinking. I’m calmer there and I seem to be able to put life’s problems and challenges in some sort of perspective. And I like it best when there are very few people around and it’s
The River Liffey is located in Dublin, Ireland. It flows through the centre of Dublin. The mouth of the river is at the Irish Sea. Around 60% of the Liffey’s flow is used for drinking water. Guinness used to use boats to deliver barrels of Guinness and these boats started their journey at the Liffey.
The lowest reaches of The Dodder River achievable are on the pedestrian walkway leading up to the busy and noisy hump of Ringsend Bridge, I’ve spotted pods of mullet here sifting through the languid still water and just recently four swans flying abreast down river their combined wingspan almost covering the water expanse bank to
The last item I saw a baby pike was below the high bridge at Charlemont St. Luas stop on the Dublin’s Grand Canal waterway just in front of the Hilton hotel, on the edge of Ranelagh. It must have been early summer 2016. Just a canal-lock up from where a pair of swans have had
A conversation with Jean Montgomery. She was a paddler. Not a rower, a paddler! She paddled a kayak. It started with a beginner’s course on the River Liffey. October and icy mists swirled on the water’s surface; airborne eddies, wrapping around trees, appearing, and disappearing. Wobbling in general purpose canoes, the small group drifted down
Conor O’Loughlen Lord of Gleninagh Castle and Prince of the Burren had for all of his life spent as much time as possible on the Rynne Peninsula, walking, reading and watching the wildlife and in summer swimming with the seals. Once while walking at the end of the Rynne he saw cattle grazing, some honey