I Heard That Pardon

Guess what they really sell here?

The Oliver St John Gogarty

Ii

Irish pubs are amazing. Go into one and it’s more than likely that the place is jumping and everyone’s singing Nowhere more so than the Oliver St John Gogarty in Temple Bar.

La Paloma

Sadly my favourite Dublin restaurant doesn’t do lunch. It gives us the perfect excuse to go back to Dublin again.

Happily Gallagher’s Boxty House (traditional Irish food) around the corner did do lunch for just €5. A nice new discovery with friendly staff.

In the Footsteps of Ulysses

Part of the Dublin walk documented in James Joyce’s book Ulysses which you can now follow by finding these plaques showing the relevant quotation from the book.

Guess where we were!

Friday Bench: Dublin

Since I last went to Dublin in 2005, all kinds of buildings have sprung up, mainly of the luxury flats variety and today most of them seem to be empty or sparsely populated owing to the demise of the Celtic Tiger economy. Some of the more unusual on offer were these flats by the entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art which are reminiscent of a Mondrian painting or suchlike.

In contrast the forlorn nature of the men sitting on the bench alongside was most striking. I’m not sure how permanent this bench might be…

Ha’penny Bridge

One of the most graceful bridges across the River Liffey in Dublin is the Ha’penny bridge, so called because that was the toll charged to pedestrians wishing to cross from one side of the river to the other.

The Temple Bar area is to the right of the picture and this shot is looking towards O’Connell bridge. This bridge can’t be seen, but the large building behind the bridge shows approximately where it is.

On the left is the boardwalk alongside the Liffey. I used to like walking along this in my lunch hour.

Temple Bar

Since I last visited Dublin, a lot of the walls of the Temple Bar area have been brightened considerably with colourful murals.

Art is to be found

Seen on a side street in Temple Bar last Wednesday.

At Bewley’s

Bewley’s is a Dublin institution. Sadly the one which I’d visited previously on Westmoreland Street is now closed, but the iconic cafe on Grafton Street is still open for business. On the second floor there is a theatre which has lunchtime and evening performances. The Boomtown Rats often met here and the plaque on the left of the picture (part of Dublin’s Rock n’ Roll Music trail) says that this where ‘Rat Trap’ was written by Bob Geldorf.

Bewley’s dates from 1840 and this cafe from the 1920s. Inside is all Art Deco, potted palms, waitresses dressed in black with starched white aprons and caps plus attentive service. We had breakfast here after our very early morning flight to Dublin airport.