Jess Dowson

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Dublin Revisited

Juvenile Herring Gull & I in a stand-off over snacks.

I think I may have left a bit of my heart in Dublin. When I was living over there for a brief period last year, I did not get the chance to visit the galleries, museums, or even as many of the suburbs as I originally wished to. In essence, this was due to lockdown restrictions coupled with academic time pressures. Hence, the desire to return and (re)visit parts of Dublin as well as investigate new areas! This did lead to a lot of walking around, managing to clock around 100km of walking over the 5 days or so, despite the sore feet. In addition to these photos here, I’ve updated the Dublin photography page.

View of Bray & Bray Head from Killiney Hill

Heading south of Dún Laoghaire, meeting a friend at Dalkey, we walked up to Killiney Hill providing a stunning view of central Dublin to the North, and Bray to the South. With the weather rolling over, it provided a rather atmospheric sight. This, along with a chance conversation with another local, prompted me to visit Bray the following day. Walking along the pebble beach with the view across the sea reminded me an awful lot of the the North Sea coast near Whitley Bay.

View of the DART line following the cliffs

From Bray, I took the cliff walk towards Greystones, but felt the need to turn back at the halfway point (2.5km) as I was uncertain as to whether I’d make the next train back. Perhaps one of several reasons to still revisit County Dublin in the future! The cliff walk itself provided gorgeous views out to the sea, as well as showed off the ingenuity of the engineers carving into and tunnelling the DART line through the cliffs themselves. Howth was the other major point of interest that was recommended to me, and I visited there on the final full day I had. Had a minor bit of bad luck unfortunately in that I had completely misjudged which walking route to take to a particular vantage point, and thus missed it entirely. However, all was not lost as I did a couple of decent shots from the harbour, and was treated to two seals swimming around. Visits by both seals and dolphins are apparently very common to Howth harbour.

Seal heading into the harbour

As for the galleries, the National Gallery of Ireland had a couple of lovely exhibitions on, one showcasing recent acquisitions, and the other featuring work created by local LGBTQ+ youth on their experiences of growing up and living in Ireland: dealing with the day-to-day hatred from others, misconceptions, self-exploration and development. The Irish Museum of Modern Art also had an exhibition centring around experiences of the LGBTQ+ community, including weathering the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 80’s & 90’s. Two other exhibitions stuck out for me at the IMMA, one was a collection of photographic works responding to the exhibition’s brief of (paraphased) “What could the potential consequences be of the UK leaving the EU, and the peace in Northern Ireland?” The works included photographs taken during the Troubles, as well as those taken since, showing the decommissioned watchtowers in NI, along with ones erected during the war in Afghanistan - often materials were reused. Other photographs from warzones were included, along with a shot of O’Connell Street, showing the Post Office and Nelson’s column, both before and after the column had been blown up by the IRA in 1966.

Plattenbaustudio one bed studio installation

The Irish Architecture Foundation was housing an installation by Plattenbaustudio as part of their ‘Momentum’ series. This particular installation was a culmination of the research done by this studio into the housing, specifically the one-bed studio/bedsit market, in Dublin. Their installation consisted of a wood and paper 1:1 mock-up of a 10 square-metre one-bed studio based upon Irish planning requirements and existing stock. The paper elements included furnishings and embellishments such as keys, phones etc, all beautifully made. As per the accompanying display, in 2019, approx 1 sqm = €100/month to rent… ridiculous eh?

Between the several items of graffiti around Dublin proclaiming “IRA 2021”, and the IMMA’s photographic exhibition, I think Belfast would be worth a visit the next time I decide to pop over to Ireland.