Dublin, day 4 and then home

For our final day, we went to Phoenix Park. W'd have gone earlier, but it had been closed due to the Queen's and the President's visits. We stopped for an early coffee in the tearoom where the board had a curious echo of the Wall gig last night


The Wellington memorial. It's a curious fact that with so much shared history (although not necessarily willingly) monuments such as these crop up to surprise the English visitor,


By way of massive contrast with the day before, having watched Pesident McAleese return to her residence, this was the entirety of her security detail.


Returning to the tearooms for lunch, I spotted some unusual vents for the roofs.



And so it was pretty much over...

Dublin, The Wall, Finale

Comfortably Numb, with Dave Kilminster doing a superb job on the lead.Finale of Numb



Rog gunning down the crowd

After waiting for the worms...

Here, the exposure is so long, you can see several frames of the animation.  Personally, I think it improves the shot

Pink, about to fall



Going

Going

Gone

Ironically, the line "floating down, through the sky" came to when this happened.  The gig concluded with a massive confetti launch from the ceilng with all the bomb types from the bomber section of the video..  The Christian Cross, the Islam Crescent, the Star of David, the Shell logo, the $ etc.  I didn't see any Mercedes though.  If you look carefully, you can see all the draped material over the sound desk to make life easier for the crew.



Dublin, The Wall, Intermission

The wall of the dead

Including Rog's dad

Dublin, and finally, The Wall

I'll mostly let the photos do the talking!

Crosses as bombs, also falling were the Star of David, the Crescent of Islam, the $, Shell and Mercedes logos















Having projected individual faces across the bricks in the wall, this captures the moment when an animated explosion blows the bricks into the distance.  A stunning visual effect

Goodbye, goodbye,

Goodbye

But don't go away, even the intermission had something to say

Dublin, day 3 - Obama shows up, and a little matter of a gig...

Or progress through Dublin was haped by the heavy Garda presence (many from out of town) for the President's trip. We spent about an hour here (for an alleged 15 minute stop - although the grounding of the Beast was probably to blame). Entertainment was provided by the Garda motorbike which, whilst parked, was blow over by a particularly heavy squall.



We waitee just outside 4 courts, it seemed the legal system was grinding to a halt, as well as the traffic.


In a few swift moments the many vehicles tht made up the Presidential procession whizzed by. Including this one


Later on, after having passed by or through many more cordons (but with the obligatory stops at Bewley's) we made our way down North Quay to the O2 for the gig.


Passing these food warmers in the window of a Thai restaurant. We were attracted to the reflections of reflections of reflections on show.



And then, finally, under the big wheel, we we in the queue for the gig.

Dublin, day 2 evening

After a great day out, we needed to top it off with some city culture. At the Oliver St John Gogarty. In the heart of Temple Bar it proudly boasted it is the only venue in Dublin that plays proper traditional music. Having heard many renditions of Danny Boy, Wild Rover, and Oasis' Wonderwall during our wanderings I can well believe. Having had a good time there a few years ago (thanks Andy!!) I knew we'd be in for a good time. I was, and the crowds big enough to need a photo of the tv screen



I saw no evidence of the need for this sign, I trust it's purely historical now!






And returning to the hotel, we passed the Spire again - illuminated this time.

Dublin, or rather Howth, day 2

Having spent the first evening of our arrival, and the first full day in the city, it was time for a change of air. After yet another sizeable Irish breakfast at the Kingfisher, we took a brief stroll down O'Connell Street to the tram stop. Having got our tickets we were amused to watch the 'a tad' inebriated chap try to help a couple of American tourists work out how to buy tickets, she tipped him whilst her husband walked off! In the end is assistance was useless, they missed their tram, and then she crossed the road to use the machine on our side.

A few minutes later ours arrived and we took the sort trip to Connolly station. Expecting a 45 minute wait for a train to Howth, we were pleasantly surprised to find a train due in about 10, so rushed to the ticket machines; solved the "so how do these work then" conundrum in just a few seconds, grabbed our tickets, strode through the Kings Cross like architecture and layout to the platform (in Kings Cross terms 9 3/4).

The journey was through the suburbs and along the way a group of young lads took the train all of 1 stop (just a few minutes) nothing strange in that - except the pushed their bikes on. Not sure why they didn't use them and ve the fare.

Upon arrival we dived into the small farmers' market just outside and got a bespoke green tea and a coffee at the Doghouse (previously blogged http://corylus.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-recent-trip-doghouse-howth-dublin.html) and then strode off, to find another farmers' market around the corner where it was clear we could get some lunch later.

So we set off through the mighty breeze to the harbour, taking in the view below,



We then came to another Bryant holiday habit - the harbour wall. So off we set. We went for the "on top" options as it seemed just as breezy in the lee of the wall


Passed another view of the boats


And came to end of our mission:


A breezy view over the sea (a lot of wind over tide going on - glad I wasn't sailing out there)


Down below the harbour entrance light, was the lighthouse



Where we found a plaque to Erskine Childers, who I know principally from the book Riddle of the Sands, which I first read many years ago when my dad (a keen sailor) encouraged me. The film's not bad, but only in more recent times (after picking up Robert Kee's worthy, but slightly turgid, three part Irish history on a previous trip to Eire)


In the distance...


We turned back to shore, and a few hundred yards from the end of thew breakwater the skies opened up and we legged it to Ann's. It's a newsagent cum village shop and was crowded with people sheltering from the rain. Feeling it wrong to just go for shelter I paid for a coffee, and was gratified to get a really good one (even better than the Doghouse!).


The squall ended quite quickly and we sauntered back to the markets and lunched on a Pieminster pie, a 60 second pizza from a wood fired oven, ad some chocolate biscuit cake (yum).

A stroll to the fishing harbour where a crowd on the concrete wall revealed there was something up, to find:



A hundred yards further on, was this sign


And Mrs B proving the King had small feet