Ireland day 0957. Sunday 12 May 2024- Lucan Again DWC

Today’s summary	Back to Lucan again with the Walking Club – while Val stayed behind and did a bit of shopping in Swords. A relaxing walk in good warm weather though narrowly missed getting soaked in the massive thunderstorm which caught us as we were driving back round the motorway
Today’s weather	Dry sunny and warm until mid afternoon when intermittent torrential thundery downpours hit us. Light south easterly wind. Appx 18c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange 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): Lucan and St Catherines park DWC

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

We have been to Lucan possibly half a dozen times over the last few years, and walked through St Anne’s and St Catherine’s parks on most of those occasions. So today, Val elected to miss the Club walk and she headed off to Swords instead, to do some shopping (which I am relieved to say went well). I, on the other hand, drove down to Donaghmede to pick up a friend and we headed off together round the motorway to Lucan.

The biggest challenge of the day, actually, was to find somewhere to park. The joining instructions for the walk simply said “meet at the gate close to the Ball Alley pub”. Purely thanks to Google Maps I managed to find what I thought was the gate (though actually it’s not really very near the pub) and there is a tiny car park there. The car park was unhelpfully completely full when we got there, but rather more helpfully someone pulled out just as I was preparing to leave, so I was able to nip in and secure a slot.

Eventually the rest of the walkers turned up – so clearly we were in the right place – and we headed into the park for our walk.

The walk was relaxing and beautiful. The trees were billowy emerald green and everywhere was literally full of the joys of spring. Even the canoeists in the normally rather uninviting Liffey looked happy with their circumstances today. We paused by the park centre for our sandwich lunches, then completed the riverside woodland walk along the north bank of the Liffey, which at this time of year really is a leafy joy.

Once back at the car park, we headed to the Ball Alley pub for a quick drink before hitting the road back to Donaghmede. En route we were hit by a massive thunderstorm which was so hard I could barely see the road in front of me. Fortunately it was relatively short lived, so when I dropped off my companions they were successfully able to make it to their front doors without getting soaked.

So all in all it was a good, relaxing day out – and we were particularly fortunate with the weather – surviving dry and unscathed despite the ominous black clouds and the occasional rumble of thunder rolling around our heads later in the day.

PS I didn’t see the Northern Lights last night. Apparently they did put in an appearance, but it was too cloudy here in Malahide to see anything 🙁

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Heading into St Anne’s Park (which is on the south side of the Liffey and which connects to St Catherine’s Park on the north bank via the footbridge near the sewage pipe)	Canoeists in the distance on the Liffey. A perfect day for it – bright and sunny and plenty of water in the river

St Catherine’s Well – presumably named after the eponymous park (or vice versa)	Rapeseed – usually an escape from cultivation – decorating the pathside near the picnic site in St Catherine’s Park

Billowy green trees everywhere – feels like proper springtime now	Just time for refreshments in the Ball Alley pub at the end

Fun on the Liffey (though the pipe above the canoeists’ heads is carrying a large proportion of Dublin’s sewage to a nearby waste water treatment plant)