The sea poured sound into my ears from the age of five when we moved to Seapoint but I didn’t like it up close and personal disliked the salt, hated the cold and, when it got up past my shoulders, found it terrifying. I loved the sea when I wasn’t in it. We climbed the
I developed an interest in the rowing club as a spectator over the past fifteen years because I live facing the river Liffey. I’ve seen the members practice their skills regularly in the evenings after work, and racing on the weekends. Once a year they hold their own regatta, and they also have a service
If the Grand Canal in Dublin could speak (and I’m not convinced that it can’t), then it would have some stories to tell. I don’t know the sad ones. It’s a canal steeped in history, and a history we can only dream of. It’s been splicing Dublin since the 1790s. Ladies in Lyonnais silk, bought
I suppose it must be the Dodder. Whatever flows into it, it’s the Lakelands, at Terenure – it’s all I’ve known it as. It’s the first place where I can remember nature existing. There is a bridge which seemed sturdy when I was 6, but when I visited it last week, it looked as if
Years of sediment are slowly cutting a curve of river off from the current. A few centimetres of water still let life flow between the busy stream and stagnating pool. A floating leaf. A twig. A spiny orange Perch. All find their way into the microcosm. Layers of shoulder height hogweed enclose the pool. There
It always starts the same: you’re stressed out at work, or run ragged at home, or nose down in the books or just tired of your own company all day long. You pack your gear bag, or your backpack, or your rucksack, or you just throw everything into the boot. You get yourself ready in
I introduced my then girl friend to my grandfather who asked, “where are you from”. She replied “Clondalkin, County Dublin”. “Oh, a country girl and from which end of the village” he asked. She informed him she lived in Fox and Geese, off Robinhood road. “Near where the Camac (river) can be seen” he interrupted
I had grown up on the North Circular Road in Limerick and spent many a happy hour fishing for sticklebacks and minnows, in a tiny stream, down at the bottom of Good’s Lane. With shoes abandoned we would paddle and pore over each catch as it frantically swam around in the bottom of our jam
I remember a time before walkways, a time before new builds and a time before street lamps which illuminate the walkway on the cold winter evenings and mornings as I make the journey daily from park west to the dutch village. A time of swans in the kitchen, a time of ducks overhead and time