I remember that in my 5th grade English student book there was a topic about tides – a long and boring story, mostly because of all the difficult expressions we had to underline and learn by heart. Just to refresh my memory I took down my old student book from the shelf (yes, I still have it) and looked up what it was about.
“Long ago people living near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean noticed that the level of the sea rose and fell twice every day. They noticed that this didn’t always happen at the same time, at the same hour, but that it took place regularly. People did not understand the cause of this rising and falling. But they noticed that there was some connection between the moon and the waters of the ocean. Today we know that the water of the sea is always moving in or out along the shores.”
When learning it, I was probably like the ones who had lived long ago and didn’t quite understand how it all worked. Especially because we, living here at the Baltic sea, never had any tides and the water of the sea stood quite at the same place almost all year round, without very little exceptions and so it was quite hard to picture the tides. Later of course, when reading more literature, I got to know about it some more and in 2010, when visiting England and Wales, I was happy to recognize it, when seeing the boats and yachts standing on the plain sand and I really thought about my old school book again.
But this time, we spent three marvellous days in Duncannon, just at the seaside, in a nice summer house and I was able to see all that with my own eyes. We arrived in the afternoon, which was probably one of the three lovely days during the summer, and the beach was full of people enjoying the nice weather. Just to mention – the sea was exactly where it had to be – a nice sandy beach, not very wide, but quite enough and the sea, standing still, not moving anywhere. What was totally different from any other beach I have ever seen, were the cars, parked everywhere on the sand, some of them almost in the water.
It seemed that only I was surprised about that because all the others were spending their time besides their cars, using them as lunch tables and playing ball over them. The ice-cream car was parked with its engine roaring over the beach, but probably it was just because of keeping the fridge working and the ice cream cold. We spent some time walking around and ended our day in the local pub, had some ciders and dinner and arrived at our nice summer house.
Our house had a small garden just looking at the sea and in the morning when I went out, the sea was gone, and it means it was totally gone, no water, just kilometers of wet sand.
We spent a nice day on the beach, found a really nice corner, where the cars were not allowed to park and enjoyed the warm day. Somewhere near 2 o’clock the water started to come back little by little. The life guards were busy to get the people back to the sea shore, because a lot of them, included myself, were walking on the wet sand that had been the bottom of the sea just a day before. And then the sea came back, just during about two hours. That was really amazing and unbelievable.
So now I have seen how it really works, not just from the books 🙂
In the evening, the local musicians were performing at the pub and everybody was singing. It’s not possible to describe how much I liked it. For the first time in my life I saw people play Spoons, actually, I didn’t even know about that kind of instrument before. So besides being just great and fantastic and really full of enjoyment, it was also an educative weekend and I love Duncannon and want to come back the next year. And I am quite sure that I will. The next time it would be interesting to wonder around a bit more and discover maybe some neighbourhood as well.
I didn’t know too much about Howth before – just knew that it’s one of the well-known seaside villages near Dublin, where it is possible to hike on the cliffs and buy fresh fish from the little shops on the pier. On that day the village was quiet, but the people who were spending their time there were absolutely aware that they are on holiday and in spite of the cool and windy weather everybody was wearing their summer clothes and outfacing the cold. I have to say that I was not so brave and during the first hour I couldn’t stop thinking about my raincoat that I had left.
The internet describes Hawth as a small and bustling fishing village which is popular among the tourists and locals and After walking through the small town or village you will soon reach the road that goes above the sea and after some time you will reach the sign that explains the different routes. You can pick from four different routes, which are called loops and they all actually start from the railway station, The Cliff Path Loop is 6 km long and is described as easy, the Tramline Loop is 7 km and also classifies as easy, the Black Linn Loop is a km longer and described as moderate and the last one Bog of the Frogs is 10 (but according to some pages 15) km long and marked as hard.
We took the last one because we both like walking and really wanted to spend the whole day outdoors. Almost the whole hiking path was on the clifftops and the landmarks that we passed are called Nose of Howth, which was the beginning of our hike with stunning views of the Lambay Island and Baily Lighthouse beneath. It took us about 3-4 hours to take the whole tour and during this time the weather changed from the threatening autumn to the mild summer day and the views beneath us were marvellous and picturesque.
Especially nice were all these secret beaches and it was almost impossible to understand where were the tracks that reached them, but as we saw some people enjoying their time there, it was definitely possible to do it. The end of the track went over the golf ground, passed some really nice country houses and ended in the forest which was quite like a jungle and lead us back to the village at last.
This time, we didn’t find out how to get to these lovely little beaches beneath the cliffs because we just wanted to walk through the whole Loop, take photos and enjoy walking. Maybe some next time it will be a good idea to take your picnic basket with some snacks and wine with you and enjoy the beaches beneath the cliffs. In this case, of course, it’s wiser to take the shorter Loop.
After that, we couldn’t help but had to wonder around all these nice small seafood restaurants which were still quite empty, because it was not the real dinner time. but we found a really good offer and enjoyed our fish plate in a cosy little restaurant and we really couldn’t expect the better end of the day.
It was located on the top of the cliff, overlooking the Atlantic’s and the views were breathtaking. It’s a very popular place among the locals, especially for weddings, but not only. It’s a perfect place to start your day or to come over and chat with your friends at the weekend with a nice drink and delicious food.
It is said that between 1845 – 1950 over 6 million people have emigrated from Ireland and over 2,5 million of them have started from Cobh or Queenstown. So this port plays an important part of the immigration history.
At the entrance stands the statue of Annie Moore and her two brothers.
Frank Browne started his journey from London by a train called “Titanic Special” which was taking the passengers from London to Southampton port to board Titanic, The queen of the Ocean.
The first place we visit is a small town Kinsale which has a fort which is called the Charles Fort, a historical port and a lot of nice colourful picturesque houses. It is located about 25 km-s south of Cork and sits at the mouth of the river Bandon with only a bit more than 2000 people. But I believe that in a summer time they have lots of tourists wandering around and enjoying the atmosphere of the town.
We started the day from the Dublin Castle, where we visited the Chester Beatty Library which is situated in the castle building. It’s a collection of manuscripts, books, and miniatures that belonged to the mining magnate sir Chester Beatty and is now displayed a free exhibition. You can find items from almost all the countries in the world and they are exposed as Wester collections, East Asian collections, and Islamic collections.
It was a nice small music festival, even the weather was sunny and warm and no showers at all. So we enjoyed almost all the groups and picked up our favourites. One of them became my real favourite, so I even got their CD.
We started from 
This round sculpture is called Sphere Within Sphere and it’s made by an Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. Versions of the sculpture can be seen not only in Trinity college but in different places of the world, including Vatican. Anyway, it seemed a nice background for a photo and as we had our photograph with us for the whole day, it’s not the only marvelous photo that we have got from that day. I didn’t know then that this one might have opened the session for my sculpture photo track because that idea came to me some time later.
After that we headed to 
Although the Irish playwright spent a great deal of his time in England the country of his birth has chosen to honor him with a statue in Merrion Square Park. As it’s possible to find a lot of proof that the sculptures of Dublin have a lot of nicknames which maybe always don’t sound so very polite, but at the same time quite funny, spiced with a bit of Irish humour, this much loved Irish Writer has also a nickname – nothing less that “The Queer with the Leer”, which sounds a little cruel perhaps, but in spite of that it doesn’t absolutely mean that they don’t love their great writer. They do of course, nevertheless of that name.
Merrion Park is also famous for its summer events, concerts and festivals. So are the other parks in Dublin of course, but I was lucky to take part of one of the Music Festivals there, but I will write a bit more about it in some next post.
After Merrion Square, we walked a bit more and very soon reached the 
– the Grafton Street. Just over the street lies one of the most beautiful shopping centres that I have ever seen. It didn’t look like a shopping centre at all, it called to my mind a picture of a resort town musical theatre or some other place where people walk around with big hats decorated with bows and feathers. I was surprised to hear that it wasn’t built somewhere at the beginning of the last century but in the middle of the eighties, not a very romantic time by my mind. When I looked up some information about the shopping centre I got to know that it was built instead of a marketplace that had really wonderful name Dandelion Market, which used to be a place with stalls with all kind of punk stuff, like badges, clothes and posters and where U2 used to have several gigs. What a pity that I didn’t have a chance to see it in these days.
It gave a bit the same feeling as our Promenade in Haapsalu, especially when to think about it’s beginning with all these well-dressed people promenading around and showing off themselves. So we walked there a bit, watched the people who had come out to spend their day in the green and the birds and children who were feeding them and headed out of the park. In every park there are signs what is prohibited in the park and one of these things was playing ball. That didn’t stop too not-yet-grown-up young men playing ball and worse, trying to swing with the tree top. It was something that probably every country boy has tried somewhere at the age of ten somewhere in his nearby woods, but it was definitely not the perfect thing for 25-year olds to do in the public park. Fortunately, they didn’t break the tree.
Our park tour ended in a small and nice
The Park was really a jewel and even the Internet says that it’s the least known parks in Dublin. It has retained its style being between of French formal and English Landscape styles and therefore looking just as a place where to come to be on your own and think your secret thoughts. Unfortunately half of the park was closed because of the oncoming Festival, but it was nice to walk around in Rose Garden, it even didn’t matter that the season of blooming had come to an end, to discover all these little fountains, pools, paths under the old big trees and nice statues hidden underneath them.
Dublin Accent 