Palm Trees in Ireland?

Dun Laoghaire

 Since Ireland is currently experiencing a heat wave, and we only work our internships Monday to Thursday, me friends and I decided to go to the coast for the day on Friday. The before mentioned heat wave means that Ireland is experiencing temperatures in the mid to upper 20s ( the 70s in Fahrenheit). Though you would never know it, Dublin is actually fairly close to the sea. Meeting at UCD at 11, Camella, Nicole, Alyssa, Julie, and I took the 46a bus all the way t

Dun Laoghaire

o Dun Laoghaire (pronounced don leary). This east coast town is on the water and has a beautiful trail along the ocean that you can walk, along with two piers. When Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom Dun Laoghaire had been a major port, but now the only ship going to Britain really is the ferry.

Walk from Dun Laoghaire to Sandycove

          Knowing that our professor had mentioned that the town right next to Dun Laoghaire, Sandycove, was also quite pretty, we walked along the shore all the way to the little town. In this town there is the James Joyce museum because it is the home of Martello tower that Joyce featured in the first chapter of Ulysses. Next to the tower is a swimming hole, and despite the cold water people were actually swimming, which we all thought was rather brave. There was also a small sand beach (Ireland's shore is mostly rock beaches) and there were a lot of children frolicking on it. The town was tiny so we began to make our way back to Dun Laoghaire, stopping on the way at St. Michael's Church which we had noticed on our walk to Sandycove. It was one of Ireland's stunning Catholic churches, and Camella--who has studied in Rome and is a art history minor--informed us all of its architecture. We were in the town now, and as it was about 1 (which is when the Irish lunch hour begins) we found an adorable cafe called Weafer and Cooper with great food to have lunch.

People braving the Irish Sea

James Joyce Tower

St. Michael's Church

         Finishing the walk back to Dun Laoghaire we stopped at Teddy's Ice Cream, which Julie had heard from a coworker was delicious. Teddy's is the 'home of the 99', which is soft serve ice cream with a stick of chocolate stuck in it. Why it is called a 99, we have no idea, and we did not want to ask. It was delicious though, even if we did not really understand it; it is apparently a Dun Laoghaire institution. With our ice cream in hand, we walked toward the pier--and saw the before mentioned palm trees. There are two piers in Dun Laoghaire, East Pier and West Pier. On one of these piers a scene from Michael Collins was filmed, but we never found out which one. They are exceptionally long, the piers, so we only walked the one that led us out to the lighthouse. Though no longer in use, the lighthouse use to house soldiers that protected the harbour and light the way for ships that were entering it. Now there is just another Teddy's Ice Cream.

Dun Laoghaire Harbour

The Lighthouse

  

 Bray

Town of Bray

By four o'clock we were done wandering the town, but had decided that it was too early to go back to Dublin. On a whim we checked the Dart (train) schedule, and saw that it would only be 5 euro to get a round trip ticket to Bray, which was another town that had been recommended to us. Buying our tickets, we got the next train and enjoyed the twenty minute ride along the picturesque coast. It was truly spectacular, and when we got off we were at a resort town that the Irish often go to holiday. The town was not big, but it was quite nice walking along the rocky beach, sipping coffee, and (attempting) to skip rocks. At about six, we made our way back to Dun Laoghaire and then got the twenty minute bus ride back to UCD (I stayed on the bus and headed back into Dublin). It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we would all wake up to sunburns on Saturday, despite having to wear jackets during part of the day due to the cold.