Ireland day 1363. Sunday 22 June 2025- Canal DWC

Today’s summary	Today, Val was working at the museum and I was walking with the Sunday group of the Club. I took the Dart and train to Drumcondra then joined the group at Binns Bridge to walk along the canal to Ashtown. The rest of the group stopped there to have lunch in the café, but I went on into the Tolka Park. Walked back to Drumcondra via Glasnevin cemetery and the Botanics. Train and Dart back then pop pop dinner and tv in the evening. Val very excited as her yellow rattle had germinated.
Today’s weather	Cool with frequent heavy showers. Occasional sunny intervals. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 16c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Drumcondra Ashtown Botanics circuit DWC

Commentary

No sooner was Val back from London yesterday, than she was back out to work again at the museum today. The highlight of her day was the discovery that some of yellow rattle seeds that she had planted in the wildflower meadow near her work, had germinated. This is a great result because the yellow rattle helps suppress weeds and promotes a more diverse ecosystem. Well done Val!

Meanwhile, I decided to join a Club walk so took a Dart and train out to Drumcondra. The group was scheduled to meet at Binn’s Bridge at noon, but as it was pouring down when I got there, we sheltered in a café for a while until it stopped.

Eventually, it dried up so we set out west, along the towpath of the Royal Canal. There was a decent sized group of 12 of us. But as the other eleven were women, I felt a bit outnumbered (again!). It was an enjoyable walk, and the wildflowers along the towpath were beautiful. Along the way, I learned that all the bridges are named after either directors or shareholders in the company that built the canal. The exception is the Hamilton bridge, which is named after William Hamilton, a mathematician who is said to have discovered the quaternion equation while walking under the now-eponymous structure.

Once we got to Ashtown, the rest of the group elected to go to the Douglas and Kaldi café for lunch but I wanted to go on a bit further. So I turned away from the canal at that point, and dropped down into the Tolka Valley to follow the paths through the park back towards Dublin.

Eventually I arrived at Glasnevin so walked through the cemetery and then to the back gate into the botanic gardens. I love these gardens in any season but today they were looking especially beautiful in their midsummer bloom.

Of course I had to check out the glasshouses and get my regular dose of Mediterranean bougainvillea, then I went over to the main building took at the photographic exhibition put on by An Óige – the Irish Youth Hostel Association. Very interesting.

From the Botanics I continued along the banks of the Tolka, through Griffith Park, back to Drumcondra. All along the walk today we were dodging the showers. We were mostly successful in finding bridges and trees to shelter under when the heavens opened, so I remained more or less dry almost to the end. But then, just as I was within touching distance of Drumcondra station, the clouds burst again and I couldn’t find anywhere to dash for shelter. So I was wet through for the journey back to Malahide.

Fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long for the train and Dart back, and I got to the flat very soon after Val returned from work. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing (me) and going on a run (Val). We had a couple of pop pop curries from the freezer for dinner and finished off the evening with an episode of “Mad Men”. A good day, despite the downpours.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Yellow Rattle – now finished flowering and has set seed. It’s a hemiparasite (on grass) and improves biodiversity in meadows	Brendan Behan (an Irish writer and activist) surveying the scene by the canal

Hamilton’s bridge – for all the mathematicians among us	National Famine Trail monument. The trail runs alongside the canal, from Strokestown to Dublin

Stunning masses daisies on the riverbank. Even if these had been artificially planted, they manage to look like wildflowers, and are beautiful	The An Óige photo exhibition above the café in the Botanic gardens

A remarkable field of Echiums, growing in someone’s front garden by the canal. Ireland’s echiums seem to have been particularly stunning this year.