Ireland day 1370. Sunday 29 June 2025- Balbriggan to Laytown DWC

Today’s summary	Led a Club walk along the coast from Balbriggan to Laytown. Everyone made it successfully, which was a relief as it was a race against the tide to get safely round the rocky headlands before the shore was submerged. Ten of us set out and four baled midway, at Gormanston. Decent weather made it a very pleasant walk. There was even time for an ice cream at the end. Val was working at the museum and we were both back in the flat about 5:30pm. Cottage pie and miso soup for dinner, then the final episode of “Mad Men”.
Today’s weather	Mild and more or less dry with sunny periods. Light south easterly wind. Appx 22c

Today’s overview location (The green 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): Balbriggan to Laytown DWC

Commentary

I’d agreed to lead a Club walk along the coast today, from Balbriggan up to Laytown. I must have been apprehensive about it though, because last night I had a nightmare that it all went horribly wrong when I forgot to get off the train at Balbriggan.

Anyway fortunately that didn’t happen but the reason for my anxiety was the tide. I had checked what the water level would be this afternoon before I agreed to lead the walk. It wasn’t ideal as high tide would be at 15:21, which I knew would be in the middle of the time we were walking. At high tide, the sandy beach disappears in some parts so you have to clamber over the rocky foreshore – or even divert inland – to get round some of the coastal obstacles. In particular, I wanted to get across the Delvin river well before high tide. If we could do that, we would be home and dry as the beach north of there is quite wide, even at high tide.

Val was working a the museum today so she pottered off just before 9:30 and I left a couple of hours later to get the 11:35 northbound diesel as far as Balbriggan.

Ten of us met up at the train station and we set off more or less straight away – except for a brief hiatus while we sought out loos. We headed down to the beach and followed the rough lines of the two recces I’d already done – in April and earlier in June – and adapted as necessary to make the most of the beach conditions.

In the end we took it slowly but everybody made it safely, much to my enormous relief. We got to the beach on the southern side of the Delvin just before the foreshore below the last rocky headland disappeared under the rising waters. But once we reached the Delvin, I knew we were immune to any further rises, as the reasonably wide beach from there north to Laytown remains dry even at the highest tides.

So we stopped for lunch by the Delvin railway bridge, which I particularly enjoyed because the worrying section had been successfully negotiated, and because it was warm in the sunshine, for once.

After lunch, we walked inland to cross the Delvin by the roadbridge, the walked down to the final 6km stretch of beach leading to Laytown. After a couple of hundred meters, four of the group peeled off to get the train back from Gormanston while the remaining six of us walked on. We were were soon joined by a seventh member, who had walked down from Laytown to meet us. He pivoted at that point and walked back with us to our end and his start point.

The rest of the walk was perfectly straightforward and very enjoyable in the mild afternoon weather. We made it to Laytown at about 16:30, which just gave us long enough to get an ice cream from Pat’s supermarket before catching the 16:51 train south.

The train was surprisingly full even though Laytown is only the second stop after Drogheda. A couple of us ended up having to stand for the 30 minute journey back to Malahide. Anyway the time went quickly as there was lots to talk about.

Malahide, when we eventually got there, was buzzing again, as it’s another concert night. Tonight we’re being treated to Alanis Morissette and she’s just warming up now as I write this.

So I’m going to sign off now learn all about Val’s day at the museum. Then I’m going to get ready to enjoy Alanis’ dulcet tones while enjoying a half price Tesco cottage pie and a nice glass of Malbec. Not a bad day all round, I’d say!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Leaving Balbriggan under the railway line	On the beach, with the Balbriggan Martello tower behind

Pop up sauna just to the north of the Martello. They are everywhere – but this is the tiniest one I’ve ever seen!	Heading off with a geological interest. the upper part of the till cliffs has been consolidated with some sort of hard matrix, which makes it look and behave like concrete. But the layer below hasn’t, so it is being eroded constantly by the sea leaving the overhanging hard layer to collapse onto it. I don’t know what has caused the upper layer to concretify like this, and why the lower layers haven’t been. I am sure there are learned papers on this – I must try and look them out.

Off the beach – at the end of the walk and leading into Laytown	Hurrah! Our train was on time (though very busy)

This agitated fellow really didn’t like us hanging around in his territory. I’m not sure what kind of bird he was – looked a bit like a skylark, but didn’t sound like one